


dreaming of you

by josiebelladonna, xtinamoon (josiebelladonna)



Series: up all night [1]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom
Genre: Art, Best Friends, Biting, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Childhood Friends, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Dirty Jokes, Dirty Talk, Doggy Style, Double Dating, Dream Sex, Edgeplay, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Foursome - F/F/M/M, Gentle Sex, Hand Jobs, Inspired by Art, Kissing in the Rain, Making Love, Modeling, Neck Kissing, Painting, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Friendship, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Tapes, Shameless Smut, Sneaking Around, Spanking, Surprise Kissing, Switching, Touching, True Love, Vaginal Fingering, Wall Sex, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:02:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 29,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22959133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/xtinamoon
Summary: (book one)They had known each other for years, even as circumstances separated them for a time, that is until his voice caught her ear in her art gallery. They rekindled things, and now, Hannah and Joey are joining forces through the worlds of art and vocal prowess.She can't stop... dreaming of him and his powerful voice.
Relationships: Joey Belladonna/Original Female Character
Series: up all night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662133
Kudos: 4





	1. losing his voice

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Italiano available: [dreaming of you (italian version)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23180947) by [josiebelladonna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna)



> Going right into my world here, the world of art and artistry. Seeing as today is Leap Day, I wanted to make it extra special, and what better person to do it with than my favorite Indian.
> 
> _"'Cause I'll be dreaming of you tonight,  
>  and tomorrow, I'll be holding you tight.  
> And there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be,  
> than here in my room,  
> dreaming about you and me."_  
> -"Dreaming of You", Selena Quintanilla

_October 1, 1986_.

“God, what a day.”

Joey just returned home from laying down vocal tracks for Anthrax's new album. Eleven hours locked up in that studio, and with only a glass of water and some vinegar to keep his vocal cords loose, and even muttering to himself, his voice lagged and cracked with fatigue. His chest felt as though he had sustained a blow and a half right square in his breast bone from maintaining control on his breathing. The muscles in his stomach were tender to the touch from pushing himself. It was a tough, physically demanding job on all parts of his body, not just his throat and his voice box.

The producers, in particular Eddie, kept pestering him all through the day, too: on top of the drums droning out in the background and the guitars sounding too distant to maintain anything of interest, not even something of a “wall of sound” in the vein of Phil Spector, his voice carried too much of the sound of a glamorous singer instead of a thrashy one.

Too much Joe Elliott and not enough Joe Bellardini.

And it was that one song, that definitive song that Charlie hailed as the crème de la crème, their potential opus, “I Am the Law,” where he let loose on the microphone, between the frustration with the producers and Scott and Danny's grinding guitars, and Charlie using his drums as his personal blacksmith kit. His hands still ached from gripping onto the microphone stand too hard, and his head pounded from shrieking so loud into the head itself.

He reached up underneath his curly black bangs to massage his temples. Even the roots of his hair felt exhausted and weary. All he felt like doing was taking a shower and then crashing on his humble little twin bed.

Joey tilted his head back against the top of the chair and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment. He could still hear Scott and Eddie bickering about the muddy, murky sound pervading Frankie's bass. Even closing his tired eyes, he could scarcely shake the image of Charlie and Danny glancing at one another with looks of confusion on their faces. All Joey himself could do was laugh under his breath, but he knew he was part of all of this, and he wound up pushing the envelope on his voice.

He cleared his throat as he reached down the side of the arm to feel the wooden lever. He pushed back on it and the rest lifted up, and he reclined back in the chair with his feet up. He put his hands behind his head and sighed through his nose.

Nothing was more indicative of it being quite the long day for him than a round of momentary silence.

That is until he thought of her.

He hadn't heard Hannah's voice in months on end, but to him it felt like forever and a day. He hadn't seen her since then either. Not since their trips to California and to Hershey, the latter of which they earned the nickname “Johannesburg” courtesy of Frankie and Hannah's friend Francine.

To think he found her by chance, by way of hearsay of a couple of patrons behind him at the bar there in the Bronx, after being separated for years. To think they met one another in elementary school, all because they both felt alone. She, like him, identified herself as “Injun” with her long dark wavy hair and her large, earthen brown eyes, but the great white North of Scandinavia and Germany bestowed her a prominent brow and a small nose: there were several times in school, he thought of her as a contrast to his boyish Italian charm. She was the girl from southern California who moved to New York while still a toddler because of her mother's job transfer, and they found their solace together in silence.

They kept things going for a few years until she moved an hour away over to Rochester to attend art school and become the formidable artist she was at that point.

So close, and yet so far away from one another. An hour felt like an eternity, especially when Joey found himself alone after school during the summer.

He missed her every day they were apart. He longed to see her again in high school, even as he started playing drums and playing hockey. He longed to see her, by some glimmer of hope and a fluke of a circumstance, somewhere in upstate New York as he played in his cover bands and then eventually, with his current gig and the one he felt to be his home, Anthrax. There have been a couple more girls between her workload picking up following the trip to California and right then, but none of them had anything on her.

She was his best friend.

Best friends forever.

Joey opened his big brown eyes and gazed up at the ceiling. He let his eyes wander along the lines making up the wooden panels and he thought of art.

She was an artist, after all. Complete with her own gallery in Rochester and another burgeoning one all the way over in the Bronx, the latter of which he found the tape recorder and left the sexy message for her. At first, he thought of it as a joke, a means to catch her attention, but then he realized what a mistake he had made.

 _There was no way she'd find it sexy_ , he thought afterwards. _Some random dude leavin' a filthy message about how he wants to fuck her silly with all of Syracuse looking on? God, I'm a fucking idiot._

Even as he walked away, he thought of sneaking back in there and taking the cassette out of there real quick, but at that point, he had no way to open the back door again so he knew it was too late. Joey stepped away from there as the butterflies in his stomach proved to be a bit too much at that moment.

Hannah was going to hear that message when the dust settled in the gallery and she headed back to her car.

And she did.

She heard it and then they found each other in the hotel lobby. They rekindled the friendship and he found the opportunity to tell her it was him. It almost felt like a dream to him.

He rolled his head over the top of the chair for a glimpse at the clock on the wall: nine thirteen. Still early.

 _But_ , he thought to himself, _she might not even be awake right now. But it's still before the “you better be dead or on fire” cut off time to call her_.

He sighed through his nose and, even with his body aching and trembling with exhaustion, he picked himself up from the recliner. Joey ran his fingers through his black curls to keep them off of his neck, and he ambled over to the kitchen to pick up the phone.

He rubbed his eyes with one hand and then dialed her number.

He leaned his back against the wall with the receiver up to his ear to listen to the dial tone—

“Hello?”

“Hi,” he greeted her: his dry, parched throat made his voice sound like one of an old man.

“Hello?” The sound of her voice made his heart flutter. “Who is this?”

“Joey,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Oh, hi!” She lets out a little chuckle. “I didn't even recognize your voice.”

“I've been singing like it's goin' out of style,” he explains, massaging his throat and his chest. “My voice is so tired right now.”

“Aw! Well—wow, it's been so long since I've heard you, too. How's everything otherwise?”

“Eh, nothin' fancy,” he admitted as he sank down towards the floor. “Lots of touring and makin' music and everything... also, I should tell you ahead of time, while you and I were separated, I dated a couple of girls. Like, this past summer.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Let's just say I was bored and trying to play the field a bit. Nothing came of either one, though, I swear. Nothing compares to my first girl.”

“Well, I hope not,” she confessed, flattered. “But even if we weren't together, I'd still love you, though, Joey. You're my best friend. Best friends love each other and put up with each other's bullshit no matter how much distance is involved.”

He chuckled at that.

“Even when I left you that message?” he asked her, sitting there on the floor with his back pressed up against the wall.

“Even when you left that message on my tape recorder,” she followed up. “Joey, I'm not gonna lie: your voice is sexy even tired sounding. You sound like you could sing me to sleep.”

“Sing you to sleep by way of whisper,” he said.

“Yes! I know you guys are heavy metal, but to hear you do a whole round of singing that involves the softer, more tender side of your voice would be absolutely divine. I could play it while I'm painting.”

“You couldn't play us now while you're painting?” he teased her, clearing his throat.

“I do!” she insisted. “In fact, today—I just got a commission to paint you and the boys. A quintet of paintings for my favorite quintet.”

“What kind of paintings?”

“Watercolor and black ink. They specifically asked for mixed media.”

“Cool! I'd love to see 'em. I know Charlie would love to see 'em 'cause he's the artist of the bunch of us. In fact, you know what? I'd love to watch you paint 'em.”

She giggled at that.

“That almost sounds like you wanna be right there modeling for me,” she quipped.

He nodded his head from side to side and rolled his eyes even though she couldn't see him.

“Mayyyyybe,” he confessed.

“C'mon, Joey,” she teased him. He nibbled on his bottom lip. He walked right into that one, like when he walked right into the art gallery.

“Okay, yeah, I'll admit it,” he said, his voice low and deep from inside of his chest. She giggled again and then, as a brief moment of silence hung over them, he thought of something else to say to her.

“Do you still have that dream catcher my mom made for you? The black one?”

“The one she gave me when we were in school?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I dunno why but—” He cleared his throat. “God, sorry, I'm totally losing it right now. But I totally thought of that just now. You know—the both of us being 'Injun' and whatnot.”

“I do,” she answered without missing a beat. “I've always had it. I've always kept it on my wall above my bed so I know I'll always be dreaming of you. Dreaming of you and bringing it all to life with my paint brushes.”

Joey closed his eyes and let the smile spread across his handsome face.

“And by the way, it's dark green,” she corrected him.

“You sure?” he asked her. “I thought it was black.”

“No, it's green.”

“If it's green, I quit.”

She burst out laughing right then. He missed her laugh!

“I like you, Hannah Christine,” he said with the last ounce of voice he had with him.

“I like you, too, Joseph Anthony,” she retorted. “Also—and I hate to do this to you because you sound like you have no voice left but—” She hesitated for a second. “—do you mind singing me our song?”

“We have a song?” he asked, his voice tightening into a broken whisper.

“'Oh, Sherrie'? Remember? You sang it for me when we went to Hershey for my birthday because you told me it was the first song you sang for Anthrax.”

“Oh, yeah, of course! But I didn't know it was our song, though, unless—”

And then it dawned on him. She was in fact the one girl for him. It was so obvious even after going through the motions that past summer with those two other chicks. He always found his way back to Hannah, whether she was in the Bronx or an hour away over in Rochester.

“Sing for me, Joey,” she whispered into the mouthpiece. “Please.”

His dark lips felt dry and yet still smooth to the touch. Smooth enough to want a kiss from her.

He stood to his feet and reached for a glass from the cupboard next to his head. Still keeping the phone up to his ear, he poured himself a glass of water from the tap.

“Joey?” she asked as he drank it down in two large gulps. He set down the glass on the counter before him.

“'Should'a been go-one...'” he started in a whisper, a breathy tone that he knew she would love. He even replaced the name “Sherrie” with Hannah.

“Oh, Joey...” she sighed through the phone. “I love your voice so much, even with it going away.”

“And then I'm gonna fuck ya silly while all of Syracuse is watching,” he stated in a single breath.

“Shhhh!” she hissed and he laughed at that.

“I think I might swing by your gallery tomorrow,” he told her with a tone of impudence.

“Do you remember where it is?”

“I do! And if I don't, I'll ask around for the gorgeous full figured artist girl.”

“Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you, big boy?” she scoffed.

“You know I would. Anyways—I'm gonna jump in the shower.”

“Don't slip,” she told him.


	2. the drive to rochester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“You're the one that I've been waiting for.  
>  Gotta quit this crying;  
> nobody's gonna heal me if I don't open the door.  
> Kinda hard to believe (gotta have faith in me)!”_  
> -“Stupid Love”, Lady Gaga

_October 2, 1986_.

Joey awoke the next morning to a warm feeling inside of his chest, an empty sensation in his stomach, and the soft blankets around him. His throat still felt dry, but refreshed from a good night’s sleep. He sighed through his nose and thought of her.

To think Cliff had been killed over in Sweden not even a few days before then.

The five of them had bounced back home to the United States faster than any of them could even say their own names. The last thing he heard Jonny Z tell them was to go home and hug their parents. Perhaps it was more than a good coincidence he thought of calling Hannah the night before. He was so exhausted that he didn’t think of that when he called her.

He lay there in bed, and gazed up at the ceiling overhead, and wondered what she had in store for him that day.  
That is if he could find the gallery over in Rochester.

When he went out with those other two girls, one of them lived in the little neighborhood to the south of town where all the rich people lived. The one thing he recalled from driving through there was the sheer amount of dirty looks from passersby, and in hindsight, he realized that marked the beginning of the end. The neighborhood comprised part of a small commune nestled down in the lush oak and evergreen trees about a few miles south of the Erie Canal, and so he swore he would find himself in his element there.

He recalled driving back home to Oswego along the edge of the lake with a head full of confusion.

Within time, Joey slid his arms to his sides and hoisted himself up onto his elbows: a few curly tendrils of jet black hair trickled down the edge of his collar bone. He lifted his hand to brush the strands to the side; all the while, he caressed his soft brass colored skin there on his shoulder.  
As soft and smooth as silk.

The blankets slid down his slim body to reveal his chest and part of his flat stomach. He imagined Hannah stroking down his body if and when they had a moment alone with each other. All the soft touches over his smooth skin after she painted that work of him. Touching him and loving him after being apart for so long.

Joey thought back to after they rekindled their friendship, and they had a moment alone in her hotel room. He could still recall the butterflies in his stomach when she gazed on at him from across the room. He knew things, including his clothes, would take off when she eyed his chest.

The other girl he went out with that past summer almost came close with him.

They had gotten alone while down in Florida with the boys and Eddie. When no one was looking, she yanked him off to the side and started kissing him with her tongue. He felt the fire rising up between the two of them and beginning to burn up the earth of flesh between them. He pulled her close with his hands resting on the small of her back, and she kept her hands upon his chest, but she pushed herself back before he could have an opportunity to reach up her shirt to unhook her bra. She never explained it to him but therein lay another one who got away from him.

Joey reached down underneath the blankets to touch the smooth skin on his bare thighs. He pictured Hannah running her fingertips on the top, and then pressing her lips right in between there. The feeling there picked up when he touched his crotch, which felt a bit firm even upon waking.

To think she was asked to paint him, Scott, Danny, Frankie, and Charlie for someone else. Maybe, just maybe, he could in fact model for her.

Nothing wrong with a little asking around. And perhaps the four of them would like to join in on the fun as well.

He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear before he pushed the blankets off all the way, and slid his legs across the top of the sheet, and climbed off the bed. The cold carpet sent a chill up his lower legs and his thighs, and then up his flat belly. He shivered and knew wearing almost nothing to bed was bit of a bad idea.

He stepped over to his closet to put on some pants and a heavy knit sweater.

Once dressed, he ran his fingers through his black curls, which still felt damp from his shower the night before, and headed for the bathroom.

He wanted to look nice for Hannah when he saw her again that morning.

A tousle of hair back from his chest. A scrub of his face. A spritz of cologne on his neck and his wrists.

“Go get 'er, young man,” he said to his reflection with a wink and a thumbs up.

Joey headed out of the bathroom to fetch his overcoat and his scarf. With a quick drink of water, he left his place for the chilly, gray morning; he climbed into his car and turned on the heater.

He drove towards the edge of town as the clouds looming over the lake began to settle and break with the sunlight. He reached into the glove compartment for his mirrored sunglasses and put them on with one hand. The pale yellow sunlight washed over the outskirts of Oswego and the hood of his car.

It would be an hour before he reached Rochester and he hoped to find something to eat by the time he arrived there.

The road wound its way around the lush forests making up the cold shores of Lake Ontario. At least his throat didn't hurt anymore.

Every passing mile brought the hungry feeling in his stomach closer to a head. He knew he should have eaten something before leaving, but he wanted to see her again and he wondered if the gallery would open early. At least that was his assumption.

Somewhere before the outskirts of Rochester, there came a point he couldn't take it anymore.

But within time, he recognized the skyline rising up next to the lake shore and against the forest. Joey set a hand on his stomach to ease the feeling but it was useless. He took the next exit and headed into the first neighborhood underneath the skyline. There had to be something to eat around here. The gallery could wait for a moment: he needed to eat something, anything.

He rolled up to the next curb before some building with papers in the two big bay windows and killed the engine. As he stuffed the keys in his sweater pocket, Joey looked down at his stomach as if he could see something there. He grimaced at the feeling but he managed to climb out to the street while the pavement was empty, and rounded the front end to the sidewalk.

Joey hesitated before this store front here and examined the papers posed behind the glass. He recognized her style in the front windows: those scratchy pen streaks making up the shading of the character in the drawing. He lifted his gaze to the light purple sign overhead with black cursive font written on the front. He couldn't exactly read it but he felt it by the sight of the drawings.

“Ah, yes, here it is,” he muttered to himself, running his fingers through his curls. He stepped over to the door and flung it open.


	3. she's xtina now

Joey was met with an overhanging woody aroma of new art pencils and new paper there in the front room. He kept his hands pressed upon the collar of his overcoat as the door closing at a slow pace sent up a back draft of cold wind over him. Once the door closed, he ran his hands over the crown of his fluffy black curls to keep them intact. A soft warmth surrounded him even with his being the sole person there.

Hannah was in there somewhere.

He turned his head to the right to behold the sight of dark gray sheets covering a series of squarish shapes on the wall. He let his eyes wander over the floor of the gallery, at the sight of the wooden easel folded up on the floor next to a flat black case to hold larger sheets of paper and canvas. He directed his attention to the left and a whole case of watercolor paints with some paint brushes next to a desk with some paper on the top.

The quintessential art studio, such that the warm woody smell overcame the gentle spritz of cologne on his neck and wrists.

Joey stepped closer to the gray sheets on the wall; he wondered what was back there, and if she had made anything pertaining to him and Anthrax yet. He strode on over to the easel and examined its spindly golden oak legs drawn into the rectangular body. There was a small brass lock on the side closest to his feet to keep it closed. He crouched down before it and folded his arms over his knees: it belonged to her and thus, he didn't want to touch it.

But it beckoned him closer because it belonged to her.

He nibbled on his bottom lip and pushed a lock of hair behind his ear.

“Hey, what're ya doin',” a voice next to him muttered into his ear. He gasped and jerked back from the easel. He gazed up at her and her long luscious near black wavy hair accompanied with straight, slightly flipped bangs over her brow. Her full pinkish lips stretched into a friendly smile, and her chubby cheekbones filled out to a shape akin to ripe apples. She smelled of that soft soapy perfume he recalled so well; a pick shaped pendant with the words “Deep Purple” engraved on it dangled from her smooth neck, and large silver hoop earrings hung down from her earlobes. Her large earthy brown eyes locked onto his. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Hi,” he sputtered, feeling the warmth blooming in his skin.

“Hey, you,” Hannah retorted, patting the sides of his face: he could feel the cold slivers of metal on the bases of her fingers. “Long time no see.”

“Long time, no see,” he echoed; he rose to his feet and stood before her. She let go of his face and patted his stomach. He jerked back which brought out a giggle from her.

“Gettin' a little bit of a tummy, I see,” she teased him.

“No!” he insisted, shaking his head. “It's just my sweater combined with my jacket.” He eyed the black blazer with matching trousers hugging her thick figure, which in turn made her appear fuller and more curvaceous than normal. The white silk button up shirt underneath only added to it; but he took a second look at her to find she had put on a little weight.

“Black's a good color for you,” he remarked, raising an eyebrow at her; he spotted a little red rose broach pinned to the lapel of her jacket.

“I try my best,” she said with a shrug. “So—I'm glad you kept your promise and came for me.”

“Hey, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves,” he scoffed with nod of his head and raising his hands up to his chest.

“Yeah, you'd like me to come for you, won't you?” she teased him with a grin upon her face. He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and shook his head. He glanced at the rose on her lapel yet again, this time to find a little white “X” right in the middle of the petals.

“What's with the 'X'?” he asked her, gesturing to his own chest.

“Oh, that's just part of my gimmick now,” she explained, touching the broach with her fingertips. “When things were taking off here, people started calling me Chris after my middle name. And then it somehow morphed into Christina, and then I just started playing with it. Everyone knows me as Xtina now.”

“Easy to throw around like a hockey puck,” he joked with a wink.

“Exactly! Oh, and by the way—if we ever go back to my place after this, I've got a little surprise for you. Mr. Almost Going Pro.” She winked back at him and he couldn't resist the excited grin crossing his face.

“Well, what're you doin' right now?” he asked her, knitting his eyebrows together.

“I'm just helpin' some people out with a previous commission. In the back room here—” She gestured behind her to the doorway leading into a short corridor and then a separate room.

“Francine's crunching numbers right now and then I'm gonna send the works out stat,” she continued.

“Wow,” he said in a hushed voice. “Wait, Francine's here?”

“Yeah, she's my manager now. I couldn't think of anyone else up for the job and so I asked her to do it.”

“Well! Miss Business Lady.” He returned to the sheets draped over the square frames on the wall next to him. “What's all this over here? If you don't mind me asking.”

“I'm doing an exhibition in a few days,” she explained. “Right after I get started on my Anthrax paintings.”

“Right after,” he echoed.

“Yeah, I set aside a whole day to make 'em.” She gazed at him with a bit of intent upon her face. “Is there another reason why you're here right now, Joey? Aside from—you know, you and I being best friends having not seen each other for months on end?”

He nibbled on his bottom lip again. She looked so good, so full and lush and sensual, and with the black ensemble only accentuating her thick curves. He put his arms behind the small of his back and bowed his head as if to play coy.

“I just... kinda...” he started in a small voice, “wanna model for you.”

She gazed on at him with her lips parted and her eyebrows raised up a little bit.

“You—wanna model for me?”

“If it's okay,” he followed up, “y'know, if it's—not too much to ask.”

She chuckled right then.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” she suggested. “I've seen you after all. And I—kinda miss seeing you. Seeing you in your birthday suit.”

“Seeing every part of me if you know what I mean,” he teased her, which brought out another giggle from her.

“Hannah?” a voice behind them called out; they turned to find Francine, in all of her light hair and bright eyes, dressed in a dark blue pantsuit, hanging out of the doorway.

“Yes?” Hannah replied.

“We're ready,” she answered; she turned her attention to him. “Oh, hey, Joey! Haven't seen you and Frankie in a while.”

“I know, right? Touring gets hectic, you know?”

“That's what I've heard, just from—you know—reading magazines and whatnot. So what brings you here?”

“Oh, you know… just… comin' to see Hannah again 'cause I haven't seen her in so long it feels like.”

“Awww. Sometimes I forget how sweet you are.”

Joey's stomach began to ache from hunger right then. Hannah knitted her eyebrows as he placed his hands over his middle.

“Ooh, I heard that,” she remarked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I am like really hungry right now.”

“Well, we were just send out the commissions and then grab a cup of coffee,” Hannah explained. “Would ya like to join us?”

“Ohhh, you know I'd love to,” he said.

“We're just gonna wrap 'em up and then mosey on over to the post office,” Francine filled in.

“So I'll hang tight in the back seat for a bit,” he followed along.

“Right! And this whole process back here'll take like—a couple of minutes—”

“Yeah, we'll be right back, Joey,” Hannah assured him as she strode on over to Francine there in the doorway, and they both disappeared into the back room. Joey kept his eyes fixated on her butt and the backs of her thighs. He couldn't help but imagine how much softer she had gotten over time. He hung there next to the easel on the floor and the covered works on the wall with his hands in his pockets and that warm feeling welling up within him again.

She had become Xtina at that point, but she managed to keep the identity separate from her own.

And to Joey, he couldn't help but find it hot.


	4. "the heart wants it wants"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"I got my red dress on tonight,  
>  dancin' in the dark in the pale moonlight.  
> Done my hair up real big, beauty queen style;  
> high heels off, I'm feelin' alive."_  
> -Lana Del Rey, "Summertime Sadness"

“There is almost no room to sit back here.”

Joey had climbed into the back seat of Francine's small car right behind Hannah; right next to him was a stack of stretched canvases and some more paints and paint brushes. They took up most of the seat behind Francine herself; they had brought out a couple of white tubes to hold the artworks on the inside, and their addition to the back seat only added to the cramped feeling. He pressed up against the inside of the door even though there was at least a couple of inches between him and the edges of the canvases.

“Ow—fuck—damn it.”

“Joey's got a big butt, I remember,” Francine joked under her breath.

“It ain't that big,” he scoffed.

“Oh come on, Mr. Hippy Boy,” Hannah teased him from the front seat.

Regardless, Joey strapped himself in and they headed straight into the heart of downtown Rochester, right as the sun disappeared behind the clouds again. He kept his shoulder pressed to the inside of the door as he didn't want to mess with the canvases to his left. They were precious, and they were precious in particular to Hannah. It would have been like riding in the back seat of Anthrax's van with all of their equipment in the back there with hardly enough room for her to sit.

Within time, and after a quick stop there at the post office to send off the tubes, they doubled back into town for a bite to eat and a cup of coffee, or a “cup of Joey” as Hannah called it, much to his laughter.

Once the three of them were seated at the bar before the coffee maker, Francine removed her sunglasses and rested her chin on her hands for a moment. Joey took his seat in between her and Hannah once he removed his overcoat and draped it over the back of the spindly stool. Francine took a glimpse over at him.

“So how have you been since the last time I saw you?” she asked him.

“Oh, you know. Same ol' Joey Belladonna as I was when she and I started going out. And Frankie's been missing you, too.”

“Aw! It's funny, I've been missing him, too. I keep meaning to call him again, but something always either comes up or I just simply forget.”

The waitress stepped up to them to take their orders: Joey almost couldn't hardly contain his hunger upon the smell of fresh cooked hash browns and eggs and bacon floating out from the kitchen behind her.

The three of them each asked for cups of coffee; as Hannah poured in a bit of creamer from the small silver karafe on the counter, Joey leaned closer to her ear.

“See that guy over there?” he pointed to her right; she directed her attention to the man nestled over in the booth in the far corner of the room. He had his arms rested upon the top of the seats and gazed out the window next to him.

“Yeah,” she replied, returning her attention to him and putting the spoon down on the counter top before her.

“He was just smelling his hand,” he remarked.

“Smelling his hand?” she asked with a chuckle.  
“Totally smelling his hand. Like—he forgot to wash his hands after he whacked off.”

“Shhh!” she hissed at him. Francine laughed and rolled her eyes at them. Hannah picked up the eggshell colored mug and brought it to her lips: the creamer gave the coffee a nice smooth light brown color, light brown much like Joey's skin.

“Why is it that the quiet boys always have the dirtiest minds,” she wondered aloud.

“It's why we're quiet,” he pointed out. “No one plans a sexual endeavor out loud.”

“You sure it's not a sexual endeavor and not something else?” she teased him.

Joey nibbled on his bottom lip. He had walked right into that one and there was no easy way out of it.

“Fuck ya silly while all of Syracuse is watchin',” he muttered before he took a sip of coffee, and she gave a playful smack on his shoulder.

Within time, their food arrived: Joey was eager to pick up his fork and dig into his light and fluffy pancakes accompanied with a pat of fluffy butter and a drizzle of maple syrup. He started eating like he hadn't eaten anything in weeks on end. At one point, Hannah stood to her feet and stepped away from the bar, and it took him several minutes to realize she hadn't returned from the bathroom until Francine pointed it out.

He flashed her a concerned glance.

“I hope she's okay,” he confessed. “I'll check on 'er. You do a better job of protecting hand bags than I do.”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and slid out of the seat, and ambled around the edge of the counter. He kept walking around a few of the tables and the booth with the man smelling his hand, and wound up in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. He spotted her standing before the ladies' room door with her hand pressed to her mouth.

“Hannah?” he asked her in a gentle voice. She sniffled and his heart skipped a few beats.

“Hannah?” he repeated, putting his arm around her and hanging closer to her face. “Are you okay?” He knitted his eyebrows together. He never liked seeing her crying, especially when they were kids. “Is everything okay?”

She sniffled again and lowered her hand. No tears streamed down from her eyes but her bottom lip trembled, and he knew she was on the brink of tears.

“Sometimes I feel like…” she began in a soft whisper, but then she hesitated.

“What? Tell me.”

“…I feel like I'm not good enough for you,” she confessed.

“What do you mean?” he asked, knitting his eyebrows together.

“Well—” She closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. “Sometimes people like to look at me and Francine, and think we're a couple of arrogant fucks with our noses in the air,” she explained in one breath. “I dunno how it is being a musician, but with artists, that's definitely what it's like. Or it's the opposite: we're supposedly tormented so much that we bleed all over our canvases and are expected to call it good. And it's like, that's not what we are at all. I mean—some days get so tough and all I feel like doing is disappearing. Some days it gets so lonely being an artist.”

Joey's face fell at the sound of that. It was hard hearing that, especially from her. She felt art as her passion and yet she still managed to feel like that at times. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight.

“Well,” he began, “if it—makes you feel better, sometimes being a musician is in fact lonely. Even while being in a band.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. I was talking to Frankie—just the other day about that. Like he told me that he missed seeing Francine because the four of us did the whole double date thing a couple of years ago. He told me the four of us really felt like a team back then, and—you know Cliff was killed, right?”

She gaped at him.

“Cliff?” she asked, her eyes enlargening. “Cliff... from Metallica?”

“Yeah.”

“When?!”

“Just the other day. That was part of the reason why we came home from Europe so early, aside from studio time opening up again. You know, when I called you, I really only did it because something made me think of you. But in hindsight, it's lucky that I did because—”

“It could've been either of you,” she finished. “And—you guys are rock stars, getting to travel and see the world and whatnot. What am I? Just the artist. The artist who's still here back home in upstate New York with nothing better to do than paint to impress people.”

“Hey, that's not true,” he deflected. “Well, maybe the whole 'being back home here' part is true, but I swear to you that you're more than just the artist. You're the artist who's best friends with the lead singer of a metal band. You've gotta be at least proud of that.”

“I am,” she insisted, “it's just—I don't know if your heart's all here, though. I mean, you went out with other girls while we were apart.”

Joey shifted his weight again, but this time, he gripped onto her other shoulder so she faced him straight on. He closed his eyes and planted his lips onto hers: how he missed kissing her. It felt like a million years since he last kissed her. How he missed the way she tasted and the silky way her skin felt upon his own. He felt her hands pressed upon the sides of his face.

They hung there for a moment before he finally let go of her. He gazed right into her brown eyes, as brown and soft as Mother Earth.

“The heart wants what it wants, Hannah, babe,” he whispered into her face.

“The heart wants what it wants,” she echoed.

“Do you dream of me?” he asked her.

“Always. I don't think I can recall the last time I didn't dream of you. That dream catcher is something magic.”

“They always will be,” he breathed into her lips.

“Back to breakfast?” she asked him.

“Back to breakfast—unless you actually have to use the girls' room.”

“No. I don't.”

“Okay.”

He pressed his lips onto hers again before they returned to the bar to join Francine again. On the way there, she tapped on his shoulder.

“I've missed you so much,” she whispered into his ear.

“And I've missed you,” he whispered back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Selena Gomez for the chapter title 🔥


	5. the poet and the painter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"And the youngest of the family  
>  is moving with authority.  
> Building castles by the sea;  
> he dares the tardy tide  
> to wash them all aside."_  
> -"The Poet and the Painter", Jethro Tull

“Well, I feel better,” Joey declared, setting his hand on his flat stomach.

“You look like you feel better,” Hannah remarked as she gestured at the soft blush blooming in his face.

The three of them congregated outside of the cafe there on the sidewalk: a gust of chilly wind came up and lifted up some of his inky black curls from his back so his head resembled to that of Medusa. He clasped his hands on the crown of his head to keep his hair down.

While he kept his arms up, Hannah lunged for him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She lay the side of her head against his chest; she put her arms underneath his overcoat to better feel his warmth. Her hands rested on the middle of his back; her chest pressed against his slim body.

“Oh, my God, Francine, he's warm!” she declared. Joey let go of his hair to put his arms around her and hold her closer to him. Francine joined in from the side to hold the both of him. Joey moved his right arm to bring her in closer but she had her arm on his overcoat; meanwhile Hannah kept her head pressed against his chest for a bit, that is until he spoke again.

“How 'bout we head on back to your place, Hannah, babe?” he suggested. “Go where it's warm so the three of us can cuddle some more and whatnot.”

“Good idea,” she said, lifting her head to look straight into his face right as another gust of wind blew his hair around. The more flyaway curls at the back of his head billowed around such that they resembled the legs of an octopus. She ran her hand down his chest and onto his stomach; she gazed up at him with her lips curled up in a seductive little smile. He recognized that look from that first evening together: the one she gave him prior to touching his chest and crossing the threshold with him that night in the Bronx.

The three of them headed back to the car, where Joey squeezed in the back seat once again; this time, he sank down low to put his knees against the back of the seat. Doing that alleviated some of the pressure on his hips and his thighs. The only problem was he could hardly look out the window at all of the buildings passing by them. He felt like a little boy in the back of his mom's car all the way back to Hannah's apartment complex about three blocks from the art gallery.

When Francine parked up against the curb, and unbuckled her seatbelt, she took a glance back at Joey there and started laughing.

“Hannah, when you get the chance, look at Joey,” she said. Hannah climbed out and peered through the back window at him, and burst out in big hearty laughter. How he missed her laugh!

She opened the door and he was met with a rush of cold air from around her.

“Need any help?” she offered him as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Maybe,” he confessed, sticking his right leg out and setting his foot on the pavement. “Maybe not—I don't know?” Francine emerged from behind her with a smug smile on her face.

“Joey, is it cold out or are you just happy to see Hannah?” she teased him as he all but stumbled out of the back seat.

“That's for me to know and for you to find out,” he retorted without missing a beat.

Francine raised a hand to give Hannah a quick but eager high-five, and then she locked up the car, and they ascended the front steps of the building. She unlocked the door and they filed into the warm, cozy lobby. Joey patted his head to fix the flyaway curls at the back once the wind settled around them.

Francine pushed the button next to the elevator for the third floor and soon, they rode the elevator up to Hannah's quaint little studio apartment with its front room big enough for a small dark crimson red plush looking love seat and an inclined desk accompanied with an iron canister filled her paint brushes, a holder for her erasers, a couple of pencils, and a dish towel slung over the top. To the right stood the tiny kitchen closed off by a bar, of which was accompanied with a pair of short, squat black wooden stools; to the left was her bedroom and the bathroom.

“Nice li'l place you got here, Hannah,” Joey remarked.

“It's not much, but it's home,” she answered, setting her keys and her purse down on the kitchen counter top. “Rent's good and my parents are right below me, too.”

“Oh, wow, really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her.

“Yeah. That means if we wanna have a little fun, we've gotta keep it down.”

Meanwhile, Francine rummaged through her purse for something, and Hannah raised an eyebrow at her.

“What's with you?”

“Ah, shit, I've gotta run back to the gallery real quick,” she told them. “Forgot my notepad—” She closed her purse and adjusted the strap upon her shoulder. “It's only three blocks away, so I'll be right back. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, and if you do, name it after me.”

She ducked out of the door and back into the hallway; the door closed right behind her. Joey and Hannah were alone there in the kitchen together. She gazed on at him and showed him a sweet smile.

“Make yourself at home, sweet friend of mine,” she encouraged him, and he bowed his head and showed her a smile in return. He stripped off his overcoat and hung it up on the hook next to the door, and then she spoke again.

“Speaking of notepads—”

“What about 'em?” he asked her as he fixed his hair yet again, and she pursed her lips together.

“I wrote a poem this past summer,” she confessed in a low voice. “It's—pretty personal, though.”

“I don't mind,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I didn't even share it with Francine,” she continued.

“Oh, yeah?” He raised his eyebrows at her. He was interested; Hannah sighed through her nose and turned her attention to her desk on the far edge of the room.

“I wrote it… back in—August, I think it was. Would you like to hear it?”

“Please. We're best friends, we should be able to share and lament over everything.”

Hannah skirted past him and made her way to the desk. He watched her open the top drawer and pick out a little black hard cover journal from the inside: for a second, he thought it was a Bible. But the hard cover had nothing on it as she returned to him cradling it in her hands. She opened it up and flipped through a couple of pages until she found what she was looking for.

“ _I watched the stars fall to earth_ ,” she read aloud, “ _and I sought shelter under the tarp. But the earth fell away, and I took a tumble down a cliff. I have to admit I'm a bit confused as to why I have wine and not water. And I have to admit I'm baffled as to why I must eat the ortega and not the chili_.”

Joey took a seat on the closest stool underneath the bar with an enthralled expression on his face.

“ _I'm down here in the valley_ ,” she continued, her expression turning grave, “ _and the tule fog swirls and suffocates me. The tumbling stones are falling, breaking my bones and pulling me apart. They know my name but not my heart. The venom seared through me, and there's a pain in my head, and a chip on my shoulder, and it took arrogance to believe_.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and wondered what went down here in Rochester when he wasn't looking.

“ _A thousand years and a million miles, wandering out through the darkness, in search of the diamond in the sand, the rose of black lace._ _She tells it to me in a hushed voice until I speak it as my own truth: 'it's all within me. It's all within my hands_.'”

She lifted her gaze from the page to find the touched look on his face.

“I call it 'Monolith',” she explained, closing the journal. “Told you it was personal.”

“You know what else is personal?” he asked her.

“What's that?”

Joey couldn't handle it for another second. He lunged for her with a firm kiss upon her lips. He put his arms around her, and she did the same, even with the journal still in hand. He let his hands ride down her back to the hem of her blazer. As he tried to reach down her jeans to feel the bare smooth skin on her butt, she led him back to the loveseat.

She lay on her back for him. She rested her head on top of the small square pillow there rested against the arm; he hung over her with his left hand clasped onto the top of the back cushion.

She reached down towards the floor and set down the journal at the foot of the love seat. He reached underneath her blouse to feel her up and she giggled from the tickling sensation on her skin.

She then reached up his sweater to feel his own soft, smooth, warm brown skin.

“How is a skinny boy so soft,” she whispered into his face. He showed her his tongue before he pressed his lips to the side of her neck.

“You tell me,” he whispered into her ear. She reached down to the button his jeans and unfastened it. She reached down into his jeans to feel him firming up.

“Fuck,” he groaned in a hushed whisper. She fondled him with two fingers and her thumb: the pads of her fingers felt like plush little pillows against his tightening skin. And that was when he leaned up against the cushions. She swapped places with him so she was on top. She was quick to undo her own trousers, but she kept on her blazer.

“God, I've dreamed about this,” he confessed to her, his voice breaking again. He let his fingers crawl underneath her blazer and her blouse to feel her and hold onto her love handles. Her skin was soft and smooth to the touch, softer than he ever imagined. She loomed over his face so loose strands of her coarse dark hair dangled down towards his dark lips and his chubby little cheekbones.

“How 'bout this?” she asked, taking a seat over his hips and proceeding to grind him.

“Fuck—fuck, yes!” he declared, letting go of her love handles. “Yeah! Yeah!”

“Shhhhh—” She pressed her finger to his lips to silence him.

“Oh, right. Your mom and dad are downstairs.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back enough for her to have a view of his neck and his Adam's apple. He gasped and pursed his lips together to stifle a yell. He wanted to yell the same way he yells in song, but he could only make a sound that resembled to the torrential hum of a Zamboni. If he wasn't singing, he was playing hockey.

She gyrated her hips around as if she rode him like a horse. He finally opened his mouth and let out a soft pleasured cry, and she knew he was about to come for her. She was coming, too.

She lifted off of him and inched closer to him; she wedged herself in between him and the back of the love seat. Joey rolled his head over the pillow for a flustered look at her; his chest heaved and he once again showed her his tongue.

“D'you like that, baby boy?” she asked him, stroking his chest.

“Sometimes a quickie is all that's needed, baby doll,” he answered in a croak of a voice. “How long do you think 'til Francine comes back?”

“Long enough to do it again if you'd like.”

“Fuck, I missed you talking dirty to me.”


	6. a moment alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“So bring me an apple, I'm crying,  
>  I’ve been persecuted, like a lying man.  
> The spirit provides me:  
> it’s what I am today.  
> This spirit it gives but also can take away.”_  
> -”Come Bite the Apple”, Mother Love Bone

“Come here, you sexy boy.”

Hannah peeled back the blankets and beckoned Joey into bed next to her. It was eight o'clock at night and the two of them were alone in her apartment.

Francine had returned from the art gallery within time to tell them she was returning to her place about a block away. Thus, the two of them spent the rest of the day together, eating pot stickers and watching movies on the little TV tucked in the corner, especially _Night Shift_ by Joey's suggestion and _Pretty in Pink_ by Hannah's suggestion. He joked how he would always be willing to watch those girly movies with her, but she loved to surprise him and make his handsome face light up, especially when she suggested _Serpico_ after _The Empire Strikes Back_.

“Pacino—you really are my girl,” he said as he snuggled next to her on the love seat.

“Well, of course.”

When the sun set, she suggested a take out of dinner from the little bistro across the street, which meant he would be alone in her apartment for about twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes was enough time for him to get in the mood for her.

Once she left the place with nothing more than her wallet in her coat pocket, Joey lounged on the love seat with his bare feet hoisted up on the arm. He wondered how she would make him pose for her when the time came.

He put his hands underneath the back of his head and gazed up at the ceiling overhead.

To think he would have to hold still for her for who knows how long. His nose already began to itch at that very thought. He rubbed the tip of his Roman nose with the back of his hand.

And then he had an idea.

Joey stood to his feet and stripped off his sweater and his jeans.

He stood there in the middle of the floor, totally naked. He glanced around the room for something to put between his legs: the ceramic bowl of apples on the counter next to the sink!

He took a seat on the stool before her drawing desk, and opened his legs, and placed the bowl right in between his thighs. He cradled the bowl in his hands as if he was Bacchus offering apple wine to the gods. The chill of the ceramic sent shivers across his thighs and his crotch. But he sat there with his hair tousled over his shoulders; when he heard her keys jingling on the other side of the door, he bumped his chest out. Hannah strode into the room with a paper sack of food in one hand; when she spotted him there before her desk, her face lit up.

“How do you like them apples?” he cracked. “That was terrible, I know.”

“Gettin' in the groove, I see,” she teased him as she closed the door with her hip. “If your jokes suck, then what the hell am I doin'?”

“Hangin' with a guy who makes corny as all hell jokes.”

“Hangin' with a gentleman who makes corny jokes,” she corrected, setting the sack down on the counter; “anyways, put your shorts on—or don't. You can eat buck nekkid if you want.”

“You just want me to sit with you in the buff,” he teased her, setting the bowl of apples down on the floor next to his left foot.

“You know what would totally make this look even hotter?” she requested, peeling off her coat and wagging her finger at him.

“What's that?” he asked, completely nonplussed to the fact he sat there with his bare legs spread open for her.

“Is if you had your Chucks on. Or those black boots you told me about—the ones you wore to your audition for Anthrax.”

“Oh, those cheap ass things with the chains on the sides?”

“Yeah. Hey, those were kinda kinky, Joe.”

“You just want me to be your little leather boy.”

She shrugged her shoulders as she took her coat off all the way.

“Mayyyyybe,” she teased him, and he squinted his eyes at her.

“You know—and this is the only part of our new album I'll talk about, too,” he began, still with his thighs open for her, “there's a song on there called 'Indians.'”

“Oh, yeah?”

“If and when we perform it live, I'm gonna see if I can find one of those big headdresses—you know what I'm talking about?”

“Yeah, those big crowns of feathers that Indian chiefs used to wear.”

“Big crowns with streamers down the back that go all the way to the floor.”

“You wanna wear somethin' like that when you model for me?” she chuckled and pressed a hand to her hip; she rested her other hand on the edge of the counter.

He shrugged his shoulders and showed her a coy look.

“Maybe.”

She chuckled again, this time accompanying it with a playful roll of her eyes; she then coaxed him closer to the counter to have some dinner.

Not one time did he put his clothes back on, so by the time night had fallen, Hannah beckoned him into the bedroom. He stepped in there to find she had changed out of her clothes and into an airy black teddy lined with black lace.

She patted on the top of the mattress to beckon him closer. When he crawled onto the bedspread next to her and hung over her breasts, accentuated by the low cut black lace, she reached up for his neck and choked him. Joey fell onto his side. He couldn't breathe, but it felt so good. His heart pounded in his chest as he held his breath.

She let go before it felt like his chest would explode. He gasped for air as he rolled onto his back.

He glanced down to find he was beginning to firm up and form an erection.

“How the hell did you learn to do that?” he sputtered, catching his breath.

“It's amazing what you can learn from doing some model work in a studio,” she explained, “and it's amazing what you can learn from examining a naked body and putting it down on paper. Add the two of us knowing each other for years and you'll see my reasoning behind uncovering your pressure points.”

“Oh—” was all he could muster right then. “Oh—God—”

She kissed his neck and stroked his chest. He gazed into her brown eyes for a moment before he reached up and ran his fingers through her hair to push it out of her face.

“Wanna go for a ride?” he offered her with a smirk and wink.

“Unless you wanna,” she retorted, reaching down to remove her panties.

“Oh, boy!”

She lay down on her back and opened her legs for him. He kissed the inside of her thighs first before he slipped his fingers in between her lips for a tickling of sorts. She could not resist the euphoric smile on her face; the bottom hem of her teddy rode up her body which exposed her belly. Even with his fingertip inside of her lips, he leaned forward and kissed her right underneath her belly buttton.

“Mmm, I missed those lips there,” she breathed out. “You know what else I've missed?”

“What's that?” he asked, lifting his head for a moment.

She lunged into an upright position to push him and his fingertip out of her. She pushed him onto his back; she was quick to straddle his crotch.

“Like riding the wave on the ocean,” she declared; her grip on his hips was gentle, but even as she gyrated her hips, Joey found himself in that feeling yet again.

“Oh—” he gasped. “Mama—Mama, please—!”

“Ooh, keep calling me 'Mama',” she pleaded. “God, that's hot.”

Her fingers were like delicate feathers on his hips but she rode him harder and harder with each gyration. Every grind felt like a rush of blood to his head, much like when she choked him.

“Mmm—mmm—mama—”

He could hardly beckon forth the right words. Each gyration made him more and more of a blithering fool.

“You guys oughta do a song where there's a lyric containing the word 'Mommy',” she teased him, breathing hard. “I can envision it right now. It's already kinda sexy sounding—makes me moist—”

He let out soft little whimpers from the back of his throat. Surely he would be coming soon—

“DON'T YOU FUCKING LOOK AT ME!” he shrieked in a piercing, operatic tone similar to the way he sang up onstage.

“Joey!” she hissed, clasping her hand to his mouth.

“Keep your voice down!” she whispered into his face. But even as she put her hand over his mouth, she had already lifted up.

“Choke me again, that was euphoric,” he begged her once she let go of his mouth.

“Put you in a fit of euphoria?” she teased him with a fierce grin on her face.

“A _state_ of euphoria,” he corrected, his voice breaking again.

“State of euphoria—that should be Anthrax's new album name,” she suggested with a toss of her hair. “Just sounds sexy.”

“First of all, the new album is called _Among the Living_ ,” he said with a tone of impudence, “and second, we wouldn't be able to listen it together.”

“Why's that?”

“Because you and I'll both know what it means and when someone asks us about it, we couldn't be able to tell them.”

“Sure we could!” she insisted, stroking his chest. “We could tell them that it's from the euphoric feeling of an orgasm.”

He showed her the tip of his tongue for a second, and then rolled his head over the pillow. He showed her his neck again.

He had all night and no intent of returning home at the moment.

“Just fucking choke me, Big Sexy Mama. Big Mama with your tight fucking ass and your titties poking out at me!”

She licked her lips and leaned forward with her hand open for his throat.

“Of course, baby boy—come to Mama, baby—”

Hannah choked him again with the use of her thumb and two fingers; this time around, he came close to reaching a climax, but she knew it was in there somewhere. Thus she opened her mouth and sucked on him until she finally made him come.

Within time, she climbed off of the bed to fetch a glass of water. Joey lay there on his back, gazing up at the ceiling and feeling his heart racing in his chest.

State of euphoria. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all because it reminded him of Hannah, and with this new album on its way, there was no way the five of them could fail. Sexual or not, they would in fact be riding on a wave and heading into the very state of euphoria as he felt right then and there.

He made a mental note to write it down and run it by Scott and Charlie once he had another moment alone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"His wicked sense of humor  
>  suggests exciting sex!  
> His fingers, they focus on her.  
> Touches—he's Venus as a boy."_  
> -"Venus as a Boy", Bjork

_October 5, 1986_.  
She had referred to it as "the Blue Room" as a nod to Frida Kahlo: it was downstairs underneath the floor of the back room where she and Francine had crunched their numbers and prepared the commissions, and she told Joey to head on down there as soon as possible, or rather sometime before Scott and Charlie showed up to pose for their artworks—apparently she had called them the night before and they were both eager to take up the offer on the same day once Joey was done.  
He showed up well before he was supposed to show up, wearing his overcoat, a black buttoned shirt, his skin-tight jeans, and his black Chuck Taylors for her pleasure.  
Joey ducked inside of the front room of the gallery, and found that the wall to his right stood blank. Maybe they sold quickly?  
He glanced about the room to find any sign of anything that made an indication that he would be modeling for her, like a stool, a tarp, anything. He kept on walking through the room until he reached the doorway leading to the back there, where he spotted a woman he didn't recognize seated at a tiny desk in there and with a clipboard in hand.  
"Hi," she greeted him with a perplexed look upon her face. "Can—I help you?"  
"I'm here to model for Hannah," he answered, running his fingers through his hair.  
"Oh, you're one of the five showing up today?"  
"Yeah."  
She lifted the piece of paper on top to examine whatever was underneath there.  
"Joseph—Bellardini?"  
"That's me," he declared, running his fingers through the front of his hair again; he found it odd that his real name was listed there. She pointed at the doorway behind her.  
"Right in there," she told him with a smile on her face.  
"Okay, thank you."  
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and continued onward to the doorway there, where he was met with a small, dim lit room with what looked like a horse blanket over the window there on the wall and an elaborate red rug upon the floor before him. In the middle of the rug stood a spindly black wooden stool. Up against the wall, and next to the window sill, stood another table with a smooth black paint palette and a series of tubes of watercolor paint.  
He closed the door behind him to give himself privacy.  
He turned to the small square table up against the wall and he spotted a white rectangle leaning up against the side of a flower vase. He strode over to the table to find his name written on the front in fancy ink letters.  
He turned over the envelope to the back and slid his finger under the back lip of it. He opened it to find a note on the inside. He recognized her neat handwriting.

" _Hey, Joey, baby—  
If you found this, go on ahead and take off your clothes and get in a pose that you feel most comfortable in. I'll be right with you to draw your beautiful body.  
Love, Hannah_"

Joey's dark lips curled up into a sweet smile as he folded up the letter and slipped it into his coat pocket. He stripped off his coat and lay it on the side of the table next to the vase.  
Even though he was alone in the room, he meticulously took off his button up shirt: he started from the lapels of his collar, which exposed the smooth brown skin on his collar bones. He opened the next button down to expose the top of his chest.  
The next one down, which exposed his breast bone; the one below that to show off the top of his stomach; the one below that to show off more of his stomach; and the final one so he stood there with his shirt hanging open. He held onto the lapels of the shirt and pushed it back. It slid down his shoulders and his arms, and let it fall on top of his coat. He unfastened his belt buckle, and unbuttoned his jeans, and let them slide them down his slender legs.  
He kept his Chucks on as he stepped out of his jeans, and stood there on the edge of the rug to feel the cool crisp air of the room upon his skin.  
She told him to take off all of his clothes. He peered down at his hips and sighed through his nose: the butterflies fluttered inside of his stomach. He stuck his thumbs underneath the band of his underwear and let them drop down his thighs, and his lower legs onto his feet. He kicked them off and stood there naked in the middle of the floor.  
He turned to the stool there next to him and took a seat on top. The smooth polished wood sent chills up his spine and all the way down his arms: he glanced down at his dark brown nipples and their pointing out like needle points. He put his arms around his waist even though he was unprotected.  
Joey sat there naked and with everything exposed out in the open.  
The door creaked open and he crossed his legs out of modesty. Hannah poked her head into the room with her eyebrows raised. She showed him a sweet smile.  
"There he is," she greeted him; she stepped into the room wrapped in a light gray smock with some paint stains on the sleeves and the sides. She carried a can of paint brushes in one hand and a few pencils in her other hand.  
"Uncross your legs, babe," she coaxed him. "Show yourself to me. I've seen you. And I'll be seeing you in a different way."  
Joey sighed through his nose again and lowered his left thigh so she could see right between his legs.  
The butterflies in his stomach flurried even more and more as she rounded him to another table underneath the window: he hadn't seen that when he first came inside. He nibbled on his bottom lip as she reached up to a black floor lamp. Golden yellow light bathed over the back of his mane of inky black curls and the smoother skin on his lower back.  
"Turn this way," she beckoned him in a kind voice.  
He slid around the top of the stool so his side faced her.  
"Is this good?" he asked her.  
"Put your left hand behind you—like put it on the edge of the seat there and put out your chest."  
He kept his arm straightened once he set the palm of his hand on the rim. He let some of his hair trickle over his right shoulder onto his chest. He kept his right hand on top of his thigh. The golden light bathed his brown skin like the wash of the sun.  
Hannah looked on at him with an expression of love. She picked up a large pad of watercolor paper from behind the table against the wall. She perched herself onto the table and placed it into her lap.  
"Hold still for me," she told him as she picked up one of her harder pencils.  
At least the light wasn't growing hot for him. He kept his eye on her darting glances between him and the paper pad resting against her left thigh.  
He sat still exactly as how she wanted him to.  
He couldn't understand why he was so nervous about all of this. He and Hannah had known each other since elementary school and they watched each other grow into adolescence, but they missed each other throughout their teen years. He had dealt with loneliness on the late nights following school and rounds of hockey, rising further and further up the professional ladder until he picked up a pair of drumsticks and a microphone. Even with everything going on with him, he still had moments wherein he missed her and wondered what she was up to over there in Rochester.  
Joey darted his eyes over at the wall next to the window behind her.   
He recognized that dream catcher there: he recognized the little teardrop shaped glass bead and golden stone the size of a green pea dangling in the middle of the delicate webbing. She had brought her dream catcher with her, but not one time during her sketching him did she explain why.  
Joey returned his gaze to her right as she smiled at him again. It took him a moment to realize he had been sucking in his stomach. He fetched up another sigh through his nose and relaxed his muscles.  
"Stay still there," she advised him as she set down the paper pad on the table next to her. "Gonna get some water."  
He closed his eyes and sighed yet again.  
"Is everything okay?" she asked him.  
"I'm kinda nervous to be honest," he confessed.  
"Why?"  
"I don't really know, I'm just feeling—feeling—"  
"Naked?"  
"Well... yeah."  
"How 'bout this?"  
He opened his eyes to find her showing him the pad of paper. Through the bath of golden light over him, he made out the sketchy graphite on the paper. She had drawn him down from his narrow feet all the way up his slender ankles and his sinewy legs; his knobbly knees and his thick shapely thighs and hips; his slim beautiful belly and his deep chest; his toned arm; his thick lush curls and his handsome diamond-shaped face. He gazed up at her with a touched expression on his face.  
She saw him as art, as something beautiful, and precious, and priceless.  
"Looks good already," he confessed to her in a low voice.  
She showed him a smile again and then ambled towards him for a kiss on the lips.  
"Anyway, stay still here," she repeated herself. "I'll be right back."  
She set the pad down on the top of the table, and doubled back towards the door to fetch a glass of rinsing water. He sat there alone in the room still in that position with his palm rested on the rim of the seat behind him.  
He directed his gaze to the dream catcher on the wall. He still thought of asking her about it.  
He kept every inch of his body relaxed once she returned to the room with a glass mayonnaise jar filled with clear water.  
"I should ask you," he began, "why's your dream catcher here?"  
She set the glass of water down on the table right up against the wall. She picked up one of her paint brushes with a large head of fine black bristles, and dipped it inside of the water, and turned to the paint palette before her.  
"To set the mood," she replied, opening the tube of burnt umber. "Beautiful boy. King of my heart."


	8. paint palettes and blackberry pie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"I live my life in the city,  
>  there's no easy way out.  
> The day's moving just too fast for me;  
> I need some time in the sunshine."_  
> -"Rock n' Roll Star", Oasis

Joey put his clothes back on by the time she had painted his naked body, all the way down to the pure white soles and toes of his Chuck Taylors. All she needed left was to paint the soft dark blue background surrounding him to top it off.  
How good it felt to put his shirt and his jeans back onto his cool crisp skin.  
He took a look down at his shirt as it still hung open, and turned to her to show her his belly and his chest.  
He slipped his thumbs into his jeans pockets to bring attention to his hips. Hannah kept her focus fixated on the paper and the paint palette before her: her right hand darted to and fro across the paper with the large wide-headed brush. She had dipped it into the deep Prussian blue paint to balance out the yellows and oranges making up Joey's body. Watching her paint was like watching a ballerina dance; once the paint dried, she would apply the black ink to the fine curls upon his head.  
But Joey himself flicked back a stray tendril of hair from the side of his neck and kept his thumbs hanging off of his pockets. He continued to watch her paint until she rinsed off the brush for one last time and let it dry off as she lay it down across the mouth of the jar. She stood before the painting with a pensive look upon her face, until she finally turned her head to him.  
She raised her eyebrows at him.  
"Hey, sexy, you wanna ride?" she teased him.  
"Not unless you wanna, babe," he retorted, tugging down on his jeans to show off a bit more skin under his waist.  
"You just wait your turn, big boy," she said, wagging her finger at him. She gazed on at the skin under his belly button. He wanted to do it with her again, but this time around underneath the dream catcher on the wall there. He crossed his right leg over his left to emphasize his hips and make them appear fuller than normal.  
"Dunno 'bout you but I'm getting hungry now," she confessed, peeling off her smock and laying on the stool in the middle of the floor.  
"Have you ever had pie that's actually kinda sexy?" he asked her.  
"Sexy pie? Mmm, the only sexy pie I can think of is my own."  
He stifled a laugh with one hand.  
"Well, you know, there's a pie place on the other side of town. You wanna—maybe—grab a slice or two of blackberry?"  
"Only if you wanna," she said.  
"Well, of course."  
Hannah eyed the sliver of smooth skin in between the edges of his shirt and she couldn't resist the mischievous grin upon her face. Joey knew that look on her face so well.  
"Sometimes I feel like punching you right in the belly," she confessed.  
"Why would you wanna punch me?" he demanded, hurt; he set a hand over his belly button. "Your best friend?"  
"'Cause you drive me crazy, that's why. You drive me absolutely crazy, Joey! You're so cute and hot and funny and sweet and—c'mere—"  
She put her arms around his neck and leaned her chest against his own, and pressed her lips onto his dark ones.  
Like kissing a fine glaze of sugar for him. She smelled of paint palettes and new brushes, but he didn't mind, especially when she lowered her arms to his slim waist.  
She lifted off his lips for a peering into his soft brown eyes.  
"How 'bout some pie?" she suggested.  
"Please."  
Once he had buttoned up his shirt and put his coat back on, she led him out of the Blue Room into the front of the gallery and out the glass door to the dreary October morning.  
"Okay, so where's this place?" she asked him once they were out by his car.  
"I'll show you," he promised her. They climbed into the front seats and he drove her around the intricate web of streets making up downtown Rochester, and over the river to a quaint cafe that specialized in pies and coffee.  
He held the door for her, both on the car and going into the cafe.  
They shared a small tin of blackberry pie with a rich, dark, luscious filling enveloped in a crispy crust, and to go with the pie, they both had big white mugs of smooth, fresh coffee.  
"Nice little break before you paint Scott and Charlie," he said with a lopsided little grin.  
"Indeed!"  
"So—" he started, bringing his mug up to his mouth but he never took a sip. "—do you mind telling me—" He lifted his gaze to the wall behind her: the gray morning sun filtering through the window highlighted his brown irises to where they stopped resembling to black holes and more to pools of the earth. "—do you mind sharing with me, actually—" He lowered his gaze back to her. "—what you plan on doing with those paintings once they're commissioned and sent off and... everything? I won't tell anyone if it's that top-secret."  
"Well, they're going down to the City, first of all."  
"Sweet! So the five of us can see 'em whenever we want."  
"Yes! Uh... they're going to be part of an exhibition. They're calling it 'New York on the rise.' Do you see where I'm going with this?"  
"I..." His face lit up as he put two and two together. "I do! That's incredible, baby doll!"  
"Here's to you and me, Joey, baby," she said, raising her coffee mug.  
"Here's to us, Hannah, babe—" He followed suit and they clinked their mugs together.


	9. "hold still for me"

“Alright, Charlie, hold still for me.”

By about noon, Scott and Charlie had shown up to do the same thing of modeling for Hannah's commission; Danny and Frankie had shown up with them as well given she would be painting all five of them.

Joey hung out on the side of the room underneath the dream catcher as she painted the former two first. The woman in the next room had brought in a pair of soft armchairs to him and Frankie to have a seat in; Danny straddled the arm to Frankie's right. Joey meanwhile set his arms up on the back of the chair to open up his chest and his body; he crossed his legs to show off the back of his right thigh. Hannah had already put some ink down on the painting of Joey and set it down against the wall in the other room to keep it safe.

Now she had the flood light pointed at Charlie, who had kept his pants on for her, but his pale white skin shone with a faint yellow sheen under the line of light. He kept his hands in between his thighs for an extra ounce of modesty. Scott, meanwhile, took off his pants and his shirt, and took his seat on the floor behind him with his arms resting atop his knees: the light shone on his shins, his bright blue socks, and the smooth toes of his heavy black Doc Marten boots. She would paint him next, but he wanted to ease into the mood first.

“Maybe Scott oughta put some of your watercolor paint over his arms, Hannah,” Danny suggested.

“That's another session for another day,” she assured him as she rinsed off her big fan shaped brush.

“Ah, so you wanna do some body art for us?” Charlie joined in.

“Maybe,” she confessed, dipping the brush into the butter yellow color on the palette before her. “I do have a body art and piercing fetish after all.”

“Hot,” Frankie joked.

“And even though it's Middle Eastern, maybe Joey and I can do some henna tattoo type stuff.”

“Henna?” Joey echoed, raising his eyebrows at her; she turned to look at him gaping at her. “Henna, Hannah?”

“Henna Hannah!” Frankie laughed.

“Henna Hannah—I kinda like that,” Scott joined in.

“You oughta just take that big fat paint brush in front of ya and shove it right up my fat butt,” Joey teased her.

“Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you, sexy boy?” she retorted back to him. Frankie let out a hoot of laughter and Danny whistled.

“Besides, your butt's not all that fat, either—just kinda on the round side is all,” she pointed out. “Your hips and thighs are little on the full side, too. So for a skinny boy, you're quite shapely, Joey.”

“So you wanna shove it right up my bubble butt is what you're saying,” he corrected himself.

“Again, you'd like that, wouldn't you, big boy?”

“Big sexy,” Scott jeered with a chuckle and a bow of his head into his arms.

“Joey is officially big sexy,” Frankie declared.

“Chief Big Sexy,” Joey laughed. He moved his arms off of the back of the chair so he could puff out his chest. “Oh, yeah, shake it, baby!”

Charlie cupped his hands to his face to stifle his laugh but it was futile, especially when Scott fell back onto the floor as he laughed out loud. Danny almost lost his balance and Frankie almost slid right out of the chair.

“Charlie, hold still!” Hannah insisted in between giggles. Joey leaned back against the chair again, but this time he set his hands on his stomach.

“Gotta belly full of pie and I'm still hungry,” he grumbled with a smug, self satisfied smile on his face.

“You ate a lot of pie, too,” she scoffed as she stroked the paper with the head of the brush again. “More than me, that's for sure. And I love blackberry pie.”

“Like how I'm gonna eat a lot of your blackberry pie eventually,” he added under his breath.

“Joey, shhhh!” she hissed at him.

Within time, she had the painting of Charlie done and she moved onto Scott, who still kept there on the floor. Because he wasn't showing as much skin, she managed to paint him at a quicker pace.

Soon she moved onto Danny, who put one foot on the rung of the stool and rested his elbow on his raised knee. For his mane of smooth hair, she put down water first and added that rich dark Prussian blue near his head followed by that bold golden yellow at the tips so they would bleed into each other.

“I'm a California girl painting five shirtless New Yorker boys,” she noted as she began painting Frankie, who faced her straight on with his legs opened a bit. “This is the life!”

“Five shirtless boys, one of whom was totally nekkid,” Joey teased her with a jerk of his head and a lopsided grin on his face.

“Totally nekkid like how I'm gonna leave you here again in a bit,” she teased back, tapping the edge of one of her slender brushes against the mouth of the jar.

“What're ya sayin'?”

“I'll slap ya naked and hide your clothes, big boy.”

Scott and Charlie stifled laughs again.

“Yeah, you'd like that wouldn't you, baby doll?”

“Right after she sticks that fan brush up your butt?” Frankie joined in without missing a beat.

“Right after she sticks the fan brush up my butt!”

“What in the chicken fried fuck is going on in here?” Francine sputtered from the doorway.

“Oh, hey, Francine!” Danny greeted her from behind Hannah. Frankie turned his head for a peer over his shoulder at her.

“Hey, babe!”

“Hi, big guy,” she returned the favor, ambling into the room and putting her arms around his upper body. “Oh, God, you're warm.”

“It's that light,” Hannah told her. “Or maybe it's all the laughter we were experiencing all afternoon. Anyways, what's up?”

“How's it coming on that painting?” Francine asked her.

“Almost done—I just have a little bit of Frankie's hair left and—here we go!”

“Now it has to dry,” she remarked.

“Has to dry and have the bit of black ink applied to it, too.” Hannah rinsed off the brush and let it drip dry.

“Okay, good. We've got a four hour drive back to the City and I'm gonna take you guys out for dinner.”

“Sweet!” Frankie declared. “So I can put shirt back on?” he asked Hannah.

“You may put your shirt back on,” she told him. The woman in the next room strode in there to help out Francine and Hannah clean and pick up.

“If I didn't know better, I'd say you guys hate each other,” the woman confessed to the latter.

“Who, me and Francine here?”

“You and him.” Hannah turned to Joey, who still kept his seat there in the armchair.

“Nah, that's just the part of being best friends,” she explained. “He and I always throw inflammatory stuff at each other.”

“We're allowed to be mean at each other,” he added.

“People always freak out about us 'why are you guys so fucking mean to each other?' And I always say, we're not. We're longtime friends who are in love with each other enough to break each other's balls once in a while.”

“Break ovaries in her case,” he corrected.

“I see,” the woman chuckled.

“Which means four hours of these two birds throwing shit at each other and making us laugh,” Scott added as he handed Frankie his shirt.

“Gonna be a sweet ride, that's for sure,” said Francine with a wink and a sly grin upon her face.


	10. two princes, five artworks, and one hallway

It was nine thirty in the evening by the time the bunch of them had arrived in the Bronx. At that point, the rains from the ocean and Lake Ontario had followed them all the way into the very heart of the borough, and at that point, Francine had apologized to Hannah and the boys that they came so late to the City.

“We've got all night, Frankie,” Frankie assured her as he put his arm around her. There wasn’t much either of them could do about it anyway given it was a four hour drive from the studio there in Rochester to that very curb.

Joey turned to the back of the car to assist Hannah and Scott in carrying in the paintings, which were encapsulated by five black carry-ons to protect from the trip and the rain. The pale yellow lights from the gallery next to them washed over their soaking hair and shoulders as they bustled into the narrow front room with a heavy wooden floor and a black telephone near the door. Once they all had filed into the stark white gallery, Francine turned to the phone and dialed a number.

“Who you callin'?” Hannah asked her.

“The guys,” she replied as she brought the phone receiver to her ear.

“Ah, yes!”

“Francine Moody,” she stated right then, “I'm with Hannah Ellsberg, also known as Xtina—”

“Right here, Hannah?” asked Scott; she turned to look at him and Joey setting the cases down on the floor.

“Yeah, but keep them separated, though,” she replied as she moved a dripping wet tendril of hair behind her ear. She grimaced at the feel of her hoop earrings as they dripped with rain water. “You know, you guys got them stacked up against each other—”

Scott picked up the other one he carried in and set it down next to the one closest to her; meanwhile Frankie, Charlie, and Danny congregated at the end of the hallway.

“I'm dripping wet—” Hannah remarked as she ran her fingers through her dark hair; she looked at Joey out of the corner of her eye and wagged a finger at him. “Don't you fucking dare—!”

He giggled and brought a hand to his mouth. Scott and Frankie joined in with the laughs. Francine waved her hand at them to quiet them, but she kept on speaking into the phone.

“Okay! They'll be here waiting for you,” she told the person on the other end. “Alright, have a good night.” She hung up the phone right there and adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder.

“So we can go to dinner now, babe?” Frankie called out.

“Yes, we sure can!” Francine announced. She turned to the door and held it open for them to file back out into the rain and the dark street. Hannah had opened her coat a little bit so as to slip her purse underneath to protect it, but she held it open enough for the downpour to soak her top down the front of her chest. An older man passed by them and eyed her with a raise of the eyebrow.

“Hey, baby, you oughta take off your shirt for me!” he jeered. “You're a one in a million two dollar one if I might say so myself!”

“She wouldn't fucking do that for you if you and her were the last people on Earth,” Joey snapped at him, stepping into his face.

“Oh, who the fuck are you?”

“I'm her best friend, buck-o.” Joey set his hands on his hips. “I can tease her but you fucking can't.”

“Oh, but what can I do?”

“You can suck my unwashed fat Injun cock is what you can do,” Joey scoffed.

“And I can help him kick your ass, too!” Scott joined in from behind him.

“Yeah, get outta here!” Danny jeered, waving him off.

“Get the fuck out!” Frankie and Charlie said in unison as he hurried away from the group.

“Dick,” Scott muttered. He turned to Hannah. “I'm so sorry you had to go through with that.”

“No, no, it’s my fault. I had my jacket opened and my shirt getting wet—”

“No, don't,” Joey insisted as he returned to her and put his arm around her. “You're the girl of my dreams and I would never let some random asshole put you down like that. You're not worth two dollars. You're priceless. Absolutely priceless to me and the guys.”

“You're so charming, Joey,” said Francine as she bowed her head and made her way back to the car with the keys in her hand.

“And now you know why I love him so much,” Hannah replied, putting her arm around his lower back and her hand on his hip.


	11. party at her place!

Francine took the bunch of them to that swanky restaurant near the edge of Yonkers: apparently she lived near there in a small loft of an apartment. But she insisted on taking them out for this late night dinner and then a slumber party of sorts afterwards.

The golden light of the ceiling lights shone over them as they congregated around the heavy wooden table in the middle of the floor. The whole room smelled of candles and fresh baked bread. Charlie and Scott took their seats on opposite ends of the table as if they were leaders of a party, which sparked a joke around the group.

“Party at her place!” Frankie declared as he raised a glass of red wine. “Party at Frankie's place!”

“Party at Frankie's place,” Francine said with a laugh. Joey kept close to Hannah, even after they ordered their food and they dug into the dishes. She examined his slender little body, donned in a single layer of clothing. She itched to feel him again; not to draw him, but to run her fingers down the slim contours of his body, all down his chest and his stomach, his hips and his thighs. She wanted to hold him and love him again, especially after he ate to his heart's desire and got all warm.

She wanted to feel his warmth and his softness again.

She only wanted even more of it once they finished their dinner by midnight and she and Francine pitched in for the pay check. They congregated outside as the rains subsided and gave way to a cool, moist breeze, such that it sent a chill down Hannah's spine. She huddled next to Joey at her left, while Scott, Danny, and Charlie huddled next to each other like three emperor penguins.

“Shall we, Miss?” Joey offered to her as Francine fished for her car keys in her purse.

“Please,” Hannah replied over the noise of the street. She hooked her hand around his forearm; she knew she would snuggle up with him in Francine’s spare bed.


	12. "don't tell mom"

Francine's apartment was a small two room studio overlooking the Hudson River, just big enough for her, Hannah, and Joey to spend the night in. Given they were near the Bronx, Frankie and Charlie bode them good night and took the next subway to their apartment buildings; Scott and Danny did the same, but they trekked on over to Queens and over to Rockland in that respective order. This left the three of them alone in this complex for the night.

“So make yourselves at home, kids,” Francine joked to Hannah and Joey once they sought shelter from the rain inside of the front room and took off their shoes. “Hannah, I'm sure you guys wanna have a little moment alone in the room back here.”

“Well, yeah,” she replied as she put her arm around Joey's shoulder. Francine hung up her purse on the hook next to the front door and then turned the dead bolt. Hannah led Joey to the guest room to her left before he could take off his coat. It was a small but cozy bedroom with a narrow twin bed, a bed just big enough for the two of them, and a neighboring nightstand upholding a tiny bluish white ceramic lamp. There was a closet to the left upon walking in: Hannah hung up her coat and her purse in there, and then she took off her shirt.

Joey shut the door behind them, and took off his coat, and let it fall to the floor at the sight of her beautiful black lace bra.

“Oh, fuck,” he remarked at the sight of it.

“Yeah, you remember this one, don't you?”

“How could I forget!”

He peeled off his shirt to reveal his slender body and that smooth dark skin. Stray black curls of hair crept over his back and shoulders, that is until he tossed his hair to the side over his shoulder.

“Come here, baby boy,” she whispered to him.

“You're gonna have to come get me, Mama,” he retorted, slipping his thumbs into his belt loops to bring attention to his hips.

“Why? Have you been a bad boy?” She eyed the skin under his belly button.

“Absolutely naughty. Just awful.” He fingered the button of his jeans and undid it at such a slow pace. He let his jeans hang open for a moment so she could examine the even smoother skin below his belt. She lifted her gaze to his face: he stared back at her with his dark lips parted a bit and his eyes hooded.

“How bad have you been, baby?” she asked him.

“Bad enough to warrant a spankin'.”

“Take off your pants.”

“I'm afraid you're gonna have to make me.”

“Ha! Good luck with that, baby boy—this room is tiny. Where you gonna run to?”

Joey hesitated with a nibble of his lip.

“Didn't think that one through, did ya?” she teased him, ambling over to him to peel off his jeans for him. She crouched down and stripped down his underwear to reveal his length.

“Oh, dear. You're gonna make me to do all the work, aren't you?”

She ran her fingertips down his smooth skin towards his head. She opened her lips but she didn't put them around it.

“Do it,” he ordered.

“No,” she retorted, holding onto his shaft.

“Blow me.” His voice quivered.

“No.” Her fingers slithered along the shaft, all the way up. She tickled him and fondled him. His skin was like silk; she lifted herself upright to look right into his face, right into his deep brown eyes.

“How did I ever know I would be holding such a beautiful boy,” she whispered into his parted lips. “Such a beautiful—beautiful—boy.”

His chest began to heave. He shoved her. She staggered back to the bed and fell right onto her back on the top cover. He kicked off his jeans, and lunged for her, and set his hands on either side of her shoulders. Loose curls dangled down over her chest, right over the cups of her bra.

He showed her a crooked grin.

“Yeah, you like the girls tickled, don't you?”

“Like your girls, too?” She ran two fingertips around his right nipple. He gasped from the feeling but he brought him lower to her face.

“To think that you and I are Injuns together,” he whispered.

“Well, of course, baby boy. The first girl to look at you and come close to you.” He brought his lips to her chest: he kissed her all the way towards her breast bone. He kissed her all around her breasts. She could feel herself growing wet and soft with every gentle caress of his lips.

“Yes, baby,” she whispered as he made his way onto her belly. “Yes, baby—right there—right there—do that for Mama—” She held onto either of his shoulders and pushed him off of her. Joey lay on his back on the edge of the bed; Hannah unbuttoned her pants and shoved them off. She made the mistake of straddling his face; he reached up and peeled down her panties.

“Ah, baby's hungry, I see!” she remarked, wagging her finger in his face. “Bad boys don't have dessert until they eat their dinner first.”

“But I want!” he begged. Hannah climbed off of the bed and rolled him onto his stomach. He lay there with his arms outstretched over his head. She peeled back his underwear all the way to reveal his smooth shapely butt: she was still stunned by how he managed to keep it so round and tight despite his being so skinny.

“Mama—mama!” he begged, his voice muffled by the bedspread. She held onto the small of his back with her left hand. She was going to get his ass with the other.

“Hold still for me, baby—mmm. Looks like you might wanna some more pie than you can handle, baby. This booty could use a little more—”

She ran her hand along his butt first. And then she lifted her hand and spanked him once.

“—a little more—” Twice. Three times.

“—a little more!”

On the fourth time, he thrust up his head and propped himself up on his elbows like a sphinx.

“Fuck!” he sputtered as she spanked him a fifth time. She let go of him so he could roll onto his back again.

She straddled his face again.  
“Can I?” he asked her, his voice breaking.

“Have as much pie as you want, baby boy,” she told him, taking off her panties.

He closed his eyes and let his tongue slip inside of her. She gasped and groaned inside of her throat at the slithering feeling.

“Can I eat with my hands?”

“What's the magic word?” she teased him.

“Can I _please_ eat with my hands?”

“If you want. Good boy.”

Joey slipped his index finger in between her wet lips.

“As wet as the streets outside,” he said, his voice breaking even more.

Somewhere in there was that spot. And then he found it: her eyes shot open and she let out a loud moan.

“Shall we dance, Mama?” he asked her, cracking a mischievous smile.

“Does your—ah—does your ass hurt?”

“Fucking aches.”

She jerked back towards his hips, still with her legs open. She took a seat and gyrated her hips. Her eyes locked onto his, especially when he closed them to surrender to the feeling.

She knew he was about to get off any second, so she lifted.

“No!” he begged.

“Yes!” she retorted, sitting down again. When she foresaw him reaching the top again, she lifted up again. She teased him all the way up to where he finally came, and she lifted off yet again. He let out a soft, still aroused groan from the back of his throat. She crawled up next to him on the bed. He still had his arms over the crown of his head: a smooth sheen covered his smooth skin, all the way from his neck all the way down to his hips.

“I—” his voice was in shambles. “—I jizzed all over Francine's nice floor.”

“Nothing a little soap and water can't fix,” she assured him as she lingered over his head and stroked his chest.

“And I still didn't fuck ya silly while Syracuse was watchin'!”

“We've got time, baby.”

“Hannah—” Joey breathed out: he gazed up at her with his eyes still hooded and his lips parted.

“Yes?”

“Don't tell Mom. Please, don't tell my mom.”

“As long as you don't tell my mom—” she insisted.

“Never.”

“You're such a good boy—” She lowered herself right over the crown of his head. “—mmm, you good boy.”


	13. the king and i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Et cetera... et cetera... et cetera..."_

Hannah rolled over onto her side next to Joey on that twin bed. She had put her panties back on before she climbed in, but that didn't stop him from laying naked behind her. He put his arms around her waist: the last thing she felt was his fingers caressing her bare belly. The last thing he felt was her hair brushing up against the side of his face and his lips.

Joey fell asleep into a dream where he and Hannah awoke in a lush bed of sorts. He was surrounded by all manner of soft, smooth silk and velvet blankets and pillows, each of them some shade of red, blue, and violet.

Something silver caught his eye: he glanced up to find Hannah had a silver and diamond tiara atop her head.

“Princess,” he said, his voice echoing around as though he had walked into a tunnel. She glanced over at him with a grin on her face.

“Prince,” she replied. “My prince.”

He reached up to feel the crown on his head. They had ascended to royalty.

“Shall we?” she asked him, holding out her hand for him. He went along with it: they both stood up and she tugged him away from the silk and the velvet. Black and white checkerboard stretched before them, right underneath their feet.

“My prince,” she whispered to him as they started slow dancing.

“You sure I'm prince and not king?” he asked her; his voice bled and soared as though he breathed out a breeze. She never replied as she caressed his lower back and his butt: he realized he wore velvet pants.

He twirled her around and then, when she faced him straight on again, she lunged for his waist. She yanked down his pants.

He looked down to find he was rising and firming up.

“Do it, Mama,” he begged; his voice faded and bled like drops of paint in a stripe of water. “Do it!”

She put her lips around the head and moved in closer to his body. He held still as she let her tongue slither around the side of his shaft. She blew him so deep, so deep that she was right up against his thighs. She deep throated him right there.

And then she turned around and dropped her velvet skirt and her tights.

He held onto her hips and thrust forward. Everything had a fine glow around them as though they stood underneath the bright midday sunlight. Even though he thrust to and fro, he moved in slow motion. His shaft went in between her lips with ease, like he stuck something into a glass of water.

Rising forth.

Drowning in the feeling.

Drowning in everything while being surrounded by velvet and rich bold watercolors…

Joey opened his eyes to find the gray morning light shining through the window on the side of the room. He still had his hands on Hannah's thick waist and his face still near the crown of her head. He could also feel something damp between his legs.

He pulsated his fingers on her bare skin in an attempt to tickle her. She groaned in her throat and shuffled her head on the pillow. He ran his fingertips around the curvature of her waist and she groaned again. He raised a hand out from underneath the covers to move her hair away from her neck. He kissed her neck and she still never stirred.

Joey kissed her smooth soft skin twice, and then he moved along the curvature of her neck.

A smile finally crossed Hannah's face and she turned around to look at him.

“Hi,” she greeted him in a near whisper.

“'Morning, baby doll,” he said, his voice breaking. She rolled over with a bit of difficulty from the narrow shape of the bed.

“I had a dream about you,” she told you once she lay on her back.

“Did you now?” He ran his finger along her chest. “What was in it? Aside from me, of course.”

“You and I made love under the moonlight and then we had filthy, naughty sex.”

“Alright,” he replied, showing her a crooked grin. “Well—it's funny 'cause I had a dream about you and me, too.”

“What was in that one?”

“We were king and queen.”

“King and queen,” she echoed, “—the king and I.”

“We danced together and then did it while we were standing up. Well, while I was standing up, anyway.”

“So—” She raised her eyebrows at him. “—doggy style?”

“Yeah.”

She lifted her head to examine the foot of the bed. She raised an eyebrow.

“That's you, isn't it?” she asked him. “That damp spot there next to my knee?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“You bad boy,” she whispered. “Bad, bad boy…”


	14. brunch with the franks

_October 6, 1986_.

Joey put his clothes back on as Hannah continued to lay there in the twin bed while wearing nothing more than her panties and the plain bed sheet. She rolled over onto her right side and propped the side of her head onto her hand. She cocked out her hip to show him her thick hourglass shape.

“I wish we had the dream catcher with us,” she confessed to him.

“Why is that?” he asked as he buttoned up his jeans. The band of his jeans hugged his slim waist right underneath his belly button.

“So we could have another moment alone,” she said.

“Oh, like the ones in our actual dreams weren't enough already?” he teased her.

“Well, no. They were all in our minds, you know.”

“Wouldn't be something else if I went out there dressed like this?” he laughed as he gestured at his own bare chest.

“You oughta! We'd dance around in the rain in our underwear and paint stuff and do stuff.”

“By the way—if and when you do have your exhibit, do you have like a prize or something?”

“Well, I get my commission and then it goes to the exhibition. And yeah, there are going to be other artists there. If the people like mine the most, I get the most money.”

“Sweet. So you don't have to worry about—” He patted his slim bare belly.

“Maybe for you,” she joked. “Besides, I think Francine's making us breakfast.” She peeled back the bed sheet to reveal her almost nude body to him, much to his pleasure. He raised his dark eyebrows at the sight of her as she climbed out of bed.

“Also be careful over here by the door,” he warned her.

“Oh, yeah, that's right! You had a little too much fun last night.”

“I had a little too much fun last night? Come on, Hannah, babe—you may as well have been screaming my name. 'Oh, Joey!'” He clasped his hands to the sides of his face and slid his fingers into the roots of his black curls. “'Oh, Joey! Yes, yes, yes! Yes, baby! Harder! Harder! Harder! Mmmm, yes!'”

He stopped in place with his hands on the crown of his head. Hannah gaped at him as if he made a gross remark, but the momentary lick of her lips was everything he needed to know right then.

“Is there anything else you could possibly think about with me?” she demanded with one eyebrow raised.

“Shoving the head of my dick into your glory hole while you're on your hands and knees a la—wheelin' and dealin'. That, and getting you breakfast.”

“Yeah, you'd like both of those things, wouldn't you, big boy?” she teased him as she put on her bra and her blouse.

“I do!”

“Well, put your shirt on—” She reached over to pat his belly which caused him to lunge back. “—and we'll get some breaking of the fast.”

She put on her pants and he fetched his shirt; once the both of them were dressed, they ducked out of the guest bedroom to find Francine and Frankie making something there in the kitchen.

“Hey, there they are!” he declared as he whisked something in the silvery bowl on the counter.

“I was about to knock on the door to see if you two birds were doing something I wouldn't be doing,” Francine joked as she opened a loaf of bread that had been in the freezer: Hannah noticed the fine layer of frost on the outside of the plastic packaging.

“And if we were, we'd name it after you?” she said without missing a beat.

“Exactly!”

“What'chu guys makin'?” asked Joey as he slipped his hands into his pockets.

“French toast,” Francine replied as she turned the knob on the burner on the stove. “It's a little late so we're calling it brunch.”

Hannah stopped in place. Joey flashed her a concerned glance.

“Wait, what time is it?” she asked them.

“About a quarter to eleven,” Frankie replied. “Like what Frankie said, we were just wondering about you two.”

Hannah and Joey gaped at one another.

“I have never slept that late!” she proclaimed.

“Me, neither! Well, then again, we went to bed pretty late.”

Francine's phone rang right then.

“Frankie, could you tend to the toast for a minute for me, please?” she asked as she stepped away from the stove.

“Yeah, sure, no problem—” She darted out of the kitchen to the living room to fetch the phone.

Meanwhile, Hannah and Joey were left to flash each other concerned glances.

“In the years we've known each other, I don't think that was ever a problem with us,” he confessed.

“I don't think so, either,” she said with a slight frown on her face. “I don't like sleeping in so late, either. I genuinely feel dirty sleeping so late.”

“Jesus, babe.”

“Well, it's the truth, Joey,” she insisted. “I'm used to getting up early and starting my day at a reasonable time. I don't know how it is for you.”

“Oh, being a rock star is like being up in the air,” he admitted; “totally fucks with your circadian rhythms and does the weirdest things to your mind. The late nights, all the late arrivals at the hotel or the studio—you know, going into the back room in search of a phone to call up my mom and dad to tell 'em that I made it.” He turned his head towards Frankie. “Right?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he agreed as he dipped a slice of bread into the pale yellow egg wash.

“Oh, my God, really?” Francine asked over the phone. Joey returned to Hannah: he recalled on what she said to him the other day. She felt like just the artist where he was the singer, the front man, the rock star. It was here he started to feel where she was coming from when she said that. Those small differences, from staying home in upstate New York all the time to waking at a reasonable time every day, Joey could witness the different plains of which he and his best friend stood upon.

“Hannah!” Francine called out once she had hung up the phone.

“Oi!”

She returned to the kitchen with a concerned look upon her face.

“What's the matter?” asked Hannah.

“That was just the guy who commissioned you—Harry—he said he's down at the gallery right now. The whole front of the place is flooded with rain water!”

“NO!” Hannah clasped her hands to her mouth.

“WHAT!” Joey and Frankie yelped in unison.

“Yeah!”

“Well, what should we do?” Joey demanded.

“Well, we've gotta have breakfast first,” Francine insisted. “Gotta have brunch with the Franks first. And besides, the cops have the place taped off to keep any more water from coming in. As for the paintings, I don't have any idea what's going to happen next. All I know is it's wet as all hell out there.”

“I'm gonna need new boots, anyways...” Joey's voice trailed off.

“I have plenty of money, babe,” Hannah assured him with a pat of his shoulder.

“Alright!”


	15. "these boots were made for walkin'"

The storm drains had flooded with so much of the torrential downpour around them that Joey had to walk along on the toes of his new boots to keep his jeans from getting wet. But it was futile given the sheer extent of the rain around them. He tugged the lapels of his coat up to the sides of his face to keep any more rain from splashing up onto his neck and his chin. Hannah kept herself close to him as they made their way down the drenched sidewalk towards the gallery.

It had been some time since they left Francine's apartment given the police had to keep any more of the waters from flooding into the front room. And so Hannah broke down and got him some new boots in the little thrift shop up the block; Francine also took the liberty of buying some new high heels for herself and nice dress shoes for Frankie.

Hannah scoured the clothing racks for something, anything, that caught her attention, and she spotted a dark brown _Toys in the Attic_ era Aerosmith shirt on one rung. It looked to be about her size, granted it would accentuate her breasts just enough.

“Hey, Hannah, babe—check these out.”

She turned around to find Joey had taken a seat on one of the chairs in the middle of the room to put on thigh high leather boots with high heels. The zipper ran all the way up the side of his calf, all the way up towards his knees. A silver, slightly tarnished chain dangled on the side of the right one. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of them, especially once he stood to his feet.

“Oh, dear,” she breathed out.

“Quite flattering, are they not?” He wobbled a bit from the high heels, but he caught himself on one of the clothing rungs before he fell right onto his side onto the hard carpeted floor.

“I'll say,” she giggled. “You look like you're about to parade around and give me what for. Or some kind of nasty cowboy.”

“I swears, I'm the lynchpin between Injun and cowboy, I tell ya _hwat_ ,” he teased her with a fake twang to his voice. She burst out laughing at that. He gestured at the shirt in her hand, and she unfurled it for him. He clasped a hand to his chest as if she had stolen his heart.

“Really wish I could've brought you along with me,” he confessed to her.

“To where?” she asked.

“My first concert—shit!” He staggered back to his seat and ran a hand through his black curls.

“Easy there, big boy!” Francine declared from nearby.

“Clapton and Aerosmith, right?” Hannah recalled, unfazed.

“Correct a mundo.” He cracked her that trademark crooked grin as he unzipped the boots.

“Do you remember what my first concert was?” she challenged him. He hesitated with his head still bowed: a few stray locks of hair fell back into his face. The rain made him look as though he had just climbed out of the shower.

“I wanna say—George Harrison?”

“George and—?” she continued. Joey nibbled on his bottom lip. She said it in such quick fashion on the morning they met each other again. And yet he managed to uncover it.

“I wanna say Paul Simon?”

“And that's why I love you.”

He unzipped the boots and slid them off. He let his legs stretch out before him.

“God, I dunno how you ladies do it with those raised up heels,” he confessed.

“Oh, honey, I'm so sorry,” Francine said with bit of a snide tone to her voice as she strode up to them with a box containing sleek sexy dark crimson red high heels tucked underneath one arm.

“Says the guy who rode around on ice skates for years,” Hannah pointed out as she folded up the shirt again.

“Says the guy who rode around on ice skates for years, right!” Joey echoed. “Rode around on ice skates and kicks drums at that, too.”

“By the way, Joey,” Francine started again, “I found a good set of black leather boots over by where Frankie's at—” She gestured to the other side of the room where Frankie crouched down by another row of boots.

“Alright! I'll be right back, and hopefully in a good mood—” He flashed back on what he and Hannah said to each other in her apartment as he stood to his feet. His ankles ached as he padded over to Frankie, who picked up a sleek pair of black leather boots that looked as though they were made just for Joey himself.

“Frankie took one look at these and was like 'uh, yeah, these are perfect for Joey,” he said once Joey entered within earshot.

“Oh, hell yeah! And by the way, how's this sound for an album name? _State of Euphoria_.”

“Sounds nice,” Frankie admitted, standing up before him, “like—pleasant even.”

“Rising up to the top of the music world and the epitome of everything feeling good and nice in the world, am I right?”

“Yeah! Like—” Frankie couldn't resist the mischievous smile from crossing his face. Joey nibbled on his bottom lip. The cat was out of the bag, especially with their girlfriends right behind them.

“I'm not even gonna say it,” Joey confessed as Frankie handed him the boots to try on. They fit his feet so well that he forgot about the fact that the high heeled ones had given his ankles such agony.

Once he had them on in lieu of his Chucks, which he put into the box the boots came in, they made their way to the gallery, and lucky for them, the rain had stopped at that point. They found planks of wood blocking off the lower part of the front doorway; Joey had an uneasy in the pit of his stomach at the sight before them. But at least the police tape was gone.

Hannah and Francine poked their heads into the front room. The rain water had flooded in there and warped the wood making up the floor. They could make up the height of the waters by the dirty line on the walls before them, right above the trimming, which meant the paintings had gotten wet.

“I don't even have any idea how they got the waters out of here,” Francine confessed.

“I don't, either,” Hannah added.

“Where'd your paintings go?” Frankie asked from in between the two of them.

“My guess is they were taken to safety,” she confessed. “That's just my guess, though. I really don't have any idea.”

“Harry said they were taken upstairs,” Francine pointed out.

“Can we go in?” Joey asked from behind them. But then again, he wanted to break in his boots some more.

“I think so?” Francine admitted. “There's no tape here—” She stepped over the boards first, followed by Hannah, then Frankie, and then Joey. The whole front room smelled musty and damp; the floor creaked underneath the soles of their feet. Francine led them all the way to the staircase at the end of the hall, and it was there they could see where the cops had diverted the waters out of the gallery through the back door. She ascended the narrow stairwell first; Joey arrived at the top last, which meant he was the last to find the outer packaging that protected the paintings had soaked from the rain water.

“Oh, fuck, don't tell me—” He almost gagged on his own breath. Frankie brought a hand to his mouth. Hannah and Francine crouched down to reveal the damage on the paintings; the former took to the one closest to Joey. She peeled open the covering at the top: it was the one of Joey. Still pristine and untouched.

The coverings had done their job.

“Okay,” Hannah breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Okay?” Francine sputtered.

“We're good. We're all good. Man, that was close.”

“So the show must go on,” Frankie declared.

“The show must go on, baby,” Francine added.


	16. showtime!

_October 7, 1986_.

It was nearly six thirty in the evening by the time Scott, Danny, and Charlie had showed up for the exhibition, and the rain had once again picked up around the City. Scott had brushed his hair to where it almost resembled a full-on wave atop the crown of his head. Danny put on his nicest shirt and trousers, where Charlie had spent almost an hour brushing his hair and then went to great pains protecting it from this next torrential downpour as Danny only stood so tall next to him with his umbrella in hand.

Meanwhile, Frankie put on his windbreaker over two button up shirts: Francine made a joke about him looking like the quintessential Italian as he slicked his hair back with a bit of water from the faucet and a piece of banana.

Joey on the other hand, had docked himself in his nicest black blazer over a black silk button up shirt: he didn’t bother combing his hair because Hannah insisted he would look amazing no matter what. Add to this, he wore his brand new boots and that soft cologne that she liked.

She and Joey linked arms as she led the way to the gallery. As he kept the umbrella over their heads, he wondered how all of this would fare for her once they posted up behind the back door.

Joey recalled to that evening when he found out it was her in that gallery and he couldn’t resist walking in there. The very memory itself was enough to give him the butterflies again.

“Alright, gentlemen—“ Hannah declared as she ducked under the awning of the back door. “It’s showtime! You’re all VIPs, so do you have your bracelets?”

“Actually I was supposed to hand them out once we got here,” Francine pointed out as she rummaged through her purse. She handed Scott and Danny the first two of the pearly white bracelets. Joey then turned to Hannah with a look of excitement on his face.

“Here we are again,” he said to her in a soft enough voice for her to hear over the rain pattering on the street.

“Here we are again,” she echoed as Francine offered to hold Danny’s umbrella so Charlie could put his bracelet on.

“No tape recorders this time, I assume,” he continued.

“Not at all. And besides, I know how you are.” She flashed him a wink. Francine tapped him on the shoulder.

“Here, Joey—“

“Oh thank you!” Hannah stepped out again to hold his umbrella so he could strap his onto his wrist.

“Okay!” she began again as she handed Joey the umbrella. “So now—do you fellas know where to go?”

“Go all the way around the front and show ‘em that we’re all very important?” Scott recalled.

“Exactly!”

“You’re gonna make us walk all the way around to the front?” Charlie griped.

“Hey, it’s not like we’re walking a mile in a snowstorm, Charlie,” Danny pointed out as he started striding into the rain.

“Alright, Hannah, let’s do this,” Francine said, excited; she joined her there on the step. She was about to open the back door when Joey spoke again.

“Hannah—“

She stopped and turned to look at his moving the umbrella back from his head; rain fell onto the crown of curls on top. She stepped forward yet again as the rain streamed down the sides of Joey’s handsome face. Some splatter landed onto her chest but he knew she didn’t mind in the least.

She lifted herself onto her toes for a light kiss on the lips. Joey closed his eyes to savor it, even when she let go and returned towards Francine and the beaming smile on her face. Joey’s heart fluttered as he brought the umbrella back over his head.

“Paging Mr. Singer!” Frankie called out.

“Can we have our Injun back now?” Charlie followed up.

“Catch you later, baby boy,” Hannah said, blowing him one last kiss.


	17. art school girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"I got a girlfriend, she goes to art school.  
>  I got an art school girlfriend, yeah.  
> I got a girlfriend, she got a girlfriend,  
> we got a girlfriend and she gotta go."_  
> -"Art School Girl", Stone Temple Pilots

Joey and Frankie posted up on the far edge of the room, right underneath a row of blown glass which dangled down from the ceiling. Scott, Danny, and Charlie clustered right across from the two of them on a low black wooden bench. The lights over their heads shone down on the glass; when Scott glanced up at the ceiling and the colors from the glass cascaded onto his pale skin to make it resemble to porcelain.

“It almost feels like I'm in a palace,” he declared; Joey noted the blue and orange shone upon his face which further accentuated his thick dark eyebrows. He looked up himself at the blown glass orbs overhead: he stood underneath a light blue cylinder dotted with white spots.

“Look at all the colors—” Danny breathed: the streaked green bowl shaped glass over his head gave his skin a gentle olive tone and illuminated the crown of feathery hair atop his head.

“Blue's a nice color for you, Joe,” said Frankie with a raise of his eyebrow. Indeed, the blue and white combination washed over Joey's brow and his curly bangs: his brown eyes shone like amber in the soft lighting.

“I feel like a turkey,” Charlie confessed.

“Why?” Scott laughed.

“We're looking up at these glass works here and it's raining outside right now.”

Frankie burst out laughing when Francine walked up to them with a glass of red punch in either hand. He lowered his gaze towards her as she handed it to him.

“For me?”

“Hey, now, the rule of sharing food is sharing it with all members of the party,” Scott teased her, wagging his finger at her.

“I didn't know punch was food,” said Joey, completely nonplussed.

“It can be, if you're quite hungry,” Francine pointed out. “Besides, Frankie's my fella. I have to give it to him.”

“What about Miss Hannah and—uh—” Frankie glanced over at Joey. “—gorgeous Joe over here?”

“Consider it a double date,” Francine suggested; she tapped the tip of Frankie's nose with her index finger.

“Okay, now things just got interesting,” Danny joked.

“Like it wasn't interesting already?” Scott followed up without missing a beat.

“Maybe it was,” Francine quipped, “Danny was just falling asleep standing up.”

“Like a turkey!” Frankie, Charlie, and Joey declared all in unison; the latter two gave one another a high five, while the former took a large gulp of punch.

Francine took a sip of punch before she stepped away and left the five of them to congregate there in that tiny room. Every so often, Joey caught glimpse of Hannah's head surfacing within the crowd in the next room. That memory persisted upon sight of her. He knew she was here in her element, but as for himself, even with his band mates, his brothers from other mothers, the gallery felt so alien to him.

She was the artist, here handling her art and her clientele to demonstrate that she had been doing this her whole entire life and she was in fact born to do this. She lamented about it but he could see it from the side of the room.

It almost reminded him of when he first joined Anthrax and they congregated down in Manhattan the first time together. He was the dirty upstate New Yorker with a hole in his teeth and a kink in the bridge of his Roman nose. The dirty hick with feathers sticking out of the back of his inky black disheveled curls. A wild horse in a china shop.

Every time he saw Hannah surface in the crowd, she had the biggest smile on her face. Her brown eyes sparkled with life and love, genuine love for what she did. She was happy.

And then it dawned on him.

He loved Hannah so much that he only wanted her to be happy, even if it meant the two of them having been separated for eleven years and then another year. He wanted to see her happy because the very sight of her made his heart sing “Oh Sherrie”, or “Wheel in the Sky,” or better yet, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

Every so often, Francine moseyed over to them to offer them a glass of punch or one of the hors d'oeuvres on hand. Joey finally took a drink and took a seat on the bench next to Scott when he couldn't take standing there with his back to the wall anymore.

“So should we walk around yet or no?” Frankie asked Francine at one point; she held a little California roll, complete with jasmine rice, seaweed, a carrot, a bit of avocado, and a dash of crab, in one hand.

“There's still one guy walking around in the main room,” she explained, “Hannah wants the regulars to make their way out before you guys have your sightings yourself. Might sound counterintuitive, or odd even, but she wants the experience with you guys to be intimate.”

“Did she make these glass things?” Danny gestured up to the glass works dangling from the ceiling.

“She did, yes! Part of her art degree was to do glass work,” Francine explained as she took a bite of California roll. “Do you guys want some sushi? I mean, you are VIPs, after all. You guys get to eat whatever the hell you want here.”

“You gave everyone else food first but not us,” Scott cracked.

“Hey, everyone else got something different and serviceable,” she continued, covering her mouth, “—you boys are gonna have your share of sushi and all kinds of good stuff. And you'll be able to see her art because her logic is to save the best for last. Hannah and I take good care of our important people.”

She surfaced to Francine's left with a big, proud smile on her face.

“And here she comes now,” Joey remarked as his heart fluttered in his chest yet again.


	18. "here in your arms"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Well you are the one, the one that lies close to me.  
>  Whispers hello, I miss you quite terribly,  
> I fell in love, in love with you suddenly.  
> Now there's no place else I could be  
> but here in your arms."_  
> -"Here (In Your Arms)", Hellogoodbye

“You boys wanna come see what I've been doing as of late?” she asked them once she came within earshot. Joey picked up the aroma of another man's cologne on her jacket and a brilliant twinkle in her eye.

“Please,” Frankie answered.

“I feel if we sit here long enough our butts'll melt into each other,” Charlie cracked.

“Or we'll become a bunch of turkeys,” Joey added.

“Turkeys?” That coaxed a laugh out of Hannah.

“It's a long story,” Danny convinced her.

“Surely it can't be,” she insisted.

“Joey and I were standing over there lookin' up at the balls—” Frankie began, and Francine burst out laughing.

“Hey, you guys were, too,” Joey pointed out as a soft blush bloomed in his face.

“Yeah, but we were sittin' down, though, Joe,” said Scott.

“You guys were still looking up at Joey's balls up here?” Hannah added. Joey himself stifled a laugh when he realized what she meant by that.

“How they radiated and shone a bunch of colors onto our faces,” Danny declared as he flashed her a smile.

“How they looked so nicely shaped,” Frankie added.

“All so intricate and delicate and glistening in the light overhead,” Joey covered his mouth with one hand; the blush in his face only made itself clearer to Hannah in particular.

“One of them had kind of an oblong shape,” Charlie started giggling himself.

“Shot a James Dean grade rainbow load in all your faces,” Francine cracked.

“Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Francine?” Joey said; he laughed so hard that he bowed his head forward and almost fell off the bench. They all erupted into laughter right then; Scott was the first to stand to his feet, followed by Charlie and then Danny. Joey sat there at the far end next to Frankie, cradling his face in his hands.

Hannah strode over to him and crouched down before him; his curls obscured his face from her.

“Are you okay?” she asked him in a gentle voice. He lifted his head to show her the crooked smile on his handsome face, and his cheekbones having filled out like ripe little apples, and his brown eyes filled with that look of love.

“There's my boy,” she whispered into his face. Francine offered to help Frankie up, and then he put his arm around her. Joey was last to stand from the bench: Hannah slipped her arm around the small of his back and rested her hand on his hip. She nestled close to him for a moment to feel him; she then took his hand and guided him past Francine and Frankie, and Scott, Danny, and Charlie. He tucked a curled tendril of hair behind his ear once they entered the main room.

The first thing he recognized was the painting of him mounted up on the wall: she had put him in the middle of the quintet and raised him up a bit. Underneath the one of Danny hung paintings of Overkill, each of them in the same style; paintings of Nuclear Assault hung underneath the one of Frankie.

New York on the rise.

“The rudest comment was that someone actually asked me if I was on cocaine when I painted the one of Danny,” she was saying.

“Wow, what the fuck,” said Danny.

“Yeah, I know, right?” Francine followed up.

“Good news is I made a thousand bucks on this one of Scott!” Hannah proclaimed as she gestured to the right of the painting of Joey.

“Oh, my God!” Scott threw his arms around her right then.

“I made bank on all of these, I should say,” she continued.

“All of them!” Charlie echoed that.

“All of them—every single one of them, Charlie, babe,” Hannah answered as she choked up a bit. “I'm officially Big Mama.”

Once Scott let her go, Frankie, Danny, and Charlie followed up with big smiles on their faces.

“Neither of us were expecting it, either,” Francine explained, wiping her right eye. “It just—it's a dream come true for the both of us.”

Joey didn't hesitate to follow suit to embrace Hannah last: he pressed his lips onto hers and then held onto the back of her head.

“I did it, baby,” she whispered.

“I'm so fucking proud right now,” he whispered into her ear.


	19. walk among the living

“You know as good as those hors d'oeuvres were,” Joey confessed, “they didn't necessarily fill me up.”

It was later in the evening and Hannah had invited them all out to dinner as part of her huge windfall. Frankie suggested a swanky little place down in Manhattan; Hannah meanwhile had asked Francine if she could keep her paintings in her apartment for the time being, and she agreed on it. In other words, she and Joey would catch up with them on the subway.

At that point, it was almost nine o'clock at night and the two of them strode along the sidewalk towards the terminal. The rain had died down a bit but he still kept the umbrella over her head, that is until they were underground away from it.

“That's the problem with sushi,” she said with a shrug as they descended the stairs. “As good as it is, it's not really much to tithe you over. Well, we are going out to dinner soon.”

“So you're gonna make me wait?” he teased her as he lowered the umbrella once they were under the concrete roof.

“For just a little longer,” she promised him. “That tummy of yours is pretty tough, babe.”

He cracked her a smile once they reached the iron gates before the actual terminal. While Hannah volunteered to pay for their ticket, Joey recognized Frankie himself running into the men's room off to the right. Before that, he spotted a closet door. It would be some time before the actual subway train arrived. It was crazy, but one dream came true this evening: perhaps another one could be granted before they had to leave.

Once she handed him his ticket, he stuffed it into his coat pocket and grasped onto her hand. He led her away from there.

“Where are we going?” she demanded. But he never replied as he hurried her into the closet, which was nothing more than a plain, bare broom closet that missed the broom. The space was tiny and lit only by the light from underneath the edge of the door. But even in the dim light, she could find him undoing the top buttons on his shirt. He brushed his hair back from the side of his neck to show himself off to her.

“What are you—what are you doing?” she asked him, clutching herself. He lunged for her and pressed his left hand against the wall, right over her head.

“It just wasn't enough to be honest,” Joey admitted. Hannah gazed into his face as he loomed over her; he used his right hand to push his black curls away from the right side of his head; the pale light shone over the side of his face and his neck to make his skin look milky and soft. He gazed into her eyes with his eyelids hooded and showed her a small but come hither smile.

“What're you—” she stammered. “What're you doing? I thought you said you were still hungry.”

“No, I mean—it wasn't enough,” he corrected himself. “One of your dreams came true—”

He kissed her lips, much to where she jerked back and shook her head.

“Joey—Joey, please. Please, not here.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not comfortable here. Not in this tight space here.”

“For a second, I thought you'd say that the Franks are doing it about three feet away from us.” In the dim light, Joey could see her lips part and her demeanor relax at the sight of him.

“A vague foursome,” she breathed into his lips.

“So you're not comfy in this little spot here?” he asked her, raising his eyebrows and showing her his tongue. “You're not comfy with this spot here?”

He loomed before her, close enough to her to where she was face to face with his chest. He kept his left hand on the wall; he used the darkness to sneak up on her. His fingers slithered onto her waist band and unbuttoned her. She kept her brown eyes locked onto his as he let his fingers creep down into her underwear. She nibbled on her bottom lip as he let his fingers do the talking.

“This little spot here?” he whispered into her face. Her lips were damp; every caress on his part made her even more wet and soft. She pinched her eyes shut. Every caress made her breathe harder. He lingered even closer to her face, close enough for the tip of his nose to barely brush against the tip of hers.

“You like that, baby doll?” he whispered in a husky voice. But before he could ask her something else, she clasped onto his throat. He let go of her lips but never took his hand out of her underwear.

“Do you want me to bite you, bad boy?” she whispered. He gasped for breath as he let go of the wall. He staggered back towards the door. She clasped onto his throat with her other hand.

“You know you want it,” she whispered into his lips. She released her grip on his throat but never took her hands off of him. “You said you're still hungry.”

He opened his eyes. In the dim light, he could make out the round moonlike shape of her face right before him.

“You said you're still hungry,” she repeated.

“I am,” he confessed.

“Baby's still hungry—”

He swallowed and relaxed upon the feeling of her hands on the sides of his neck. Her fingers slid down the sides of his neck and onto his collar bones. Her fingers followed his deep chest and all the way down towards his waist. He stood still as she lifted his shirt. Her fingers caressed the soft skin on his waist.

He knew what she was doing.

“Right there—” he told her, still keeping his voice low and husky. She ran her fingertip around the rim of his belly button. She poked his skin right next to the rim. “—there—”

She pushed his shirt up his body so she could put her teeth there next to his belly button. The feeling made his toes curl inside of his shoes. “—mmm, yes, please. God, please—”

She was careful not to nibble too hard on him, but it was enough for him. Even after all this time, she was still good at it.

“Hey—hey—” Joey gasped. The edges of her teeth ground against that little piece of skin. The pain was euphoric. It was everything he could ask for. His heart hammered in his chest. “—hey—okay—okay—”

She let her tongue slither out in between her teeth onto that spot there. The feeling riddled with such pain that it was erotic for him. It was ten times that of a blowjob.

“God—” he sputtered. “God—fuck—mama! Mommy! Mommy! Ah!”

“Don't do it, baby,” she scolded him in a hushed voice and reached a hand up towards his mouth. “Don't you dare.”

She rose up before him and loomed in his face. She showed him her tongue and her own come hither look.

“Don't you dare come for me.” She released her hand from his mouth and tipped her head to the side of his neck. Joey gasped and whimpered at the feeling of her lips there on his skin. She barred her teeth again and nibbled on him again there on the side of his neck. She was careful to not hurt him. It was more euphoric than the bites on his stomach.

“I want you,” she breathed into his ear. “I want you so much.”

He tilted his head back to move his hair out of the way.

“—mmm, you're so sexy,” she breathed into his ear again. “God, you're really sexy right now, baby.”

It was almost involuntary the way he moved back towards the door. But the next thing he knew he had his back nestled within the corner. Every little bite on the side of his neck made him rise even more.

“You are mighty fine right now, baby,” she continued. “I drew your beautiful body. I have seen you. I have seen every inch of you. Now I'm ready to feel every inch of you.”

“Choke me,” he begged. “Choke me, please.”

Her fingers slithered around his neck and he held his breath. He could feel himself rising higher, but if only she could make it hit the high point even more. He gagged and gasped when it felt like his chest was about to burst.

She then let go of his neck and he almost came right in his jeans. He pinched his eyes shut because he knew he would have to flag down the men's room by the time they arrived in Manhattan. But he came for her: he reached the top for her and that was all that mattered to him.

“Joey—” she giggled at the look on his face. “Joey—mmm, baby—”

He crossed his legs but he knew she was pleased. She put her arms around his waist. He gasped for air and relaxed every inch of his body.

“—don't let me go,” he stammered.

“Only if you don't let me go,” she whispered into his face. He let out a long low whistle as he held her close to his chest.

“Joey—” she whispered into his ear.

“Hannah—” he echoed. He opened his eyes to find her hovering right in front of him. The dim light flowing in from under the door to his left softened her face to where it resembled the full moon. The full moon watching over him as he slept in his own bed again.

“I love you,” she whispered into his face. “I love you more than anything in the world.”

“You are the love of my life,” he whispered to her. “There may be other girls but I'll always come back to you.”

“And I'll always come back to you. To you and—” Her hand rested upon his stomach for a second, and then she moved up towards his chest to feel his heart as it calmed down from the adrenaline. “—the feeling of home that resides within you. That feeling that I'm more than familiar with.”

“You know, when you were in the gallery and you had this look on your face like you were totally in your element. You never looked more beautiful to me.”

“My beautiful boy,” she whispered into his lips before giving him a kiss. “Let's go, baby.”

“Oh, right, the subway!”

She led him out of the closet and he fixed his hair and took his ticket out of his pocket. He walked with an awkward gait right next to her towards the platform, but his inline steps were trivial to him. In fact, to take the awkward feeling away, he sang to her. Since they were alone in the terminal, he allowed his voice to echo throughout the place.

He sang her their song, but then, once he knew for a fact that that wasn't Frankie in the bathroom, he sang “Since I've Been Lovin' You” to her. He put his arm around her and held her close to his chest.

“I'll always be dreaming of your powerful voice,” she confessed to him in a low voice.

“Always gets you goin', doesn't it?” he asked her, showing her a crooked grin again.

“Keeps me in the studio and keeps me in love with you.” Once the words left her lips, the silvery metal subway train lumbered up before them.

It was late at night and she offered to take him out to dinner, and then that night, he would fall asleep with her in his arms, and he knew he would be dreaming of her. And he knew she would be dreaming of him. She just couldn't stop dreaming of him, or his powerful voice.


	20. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually my one shot "a quiet place" but rewritten to fit the narrative. Enjoy<3

It was only two years ago when Hannah had woken up feeling like her life was over. That old job drained her dry. Art was in her soul, and it ached to flood out of her.

Her family relocated out to the East Coast from the southeastern side of Los Angeles because her mother's job transfer to Rochester, but Oswego was a quick seventy-five minute commute. Because of this, Hannah called the region home from a young age. But given she decreed herself “California baby, New York kid” it was isolating at school, and thus she found herself curled up with a book to read or a picture to draw, or playing solo

It wasn't until she met Joe when she began to feel more at ease.

That day, she sat down at the table in the library, right across from him. He wore a bright red hockey jersey under a big black windbreaker and he didn’t look very comfortable the stern, serious expression plastered on his face. Hannah knew right away he was bit of an outcast himself.

She asked to sit with him and he raised those big brown eyes up at her from his book and nodded.

He had nappy black hair all around his head to where it dangled down onto his shoulders. His skin was light brown and smooth, and with his brown eyes, she soon realized he was Indian, like her. He kind of resembled her: she thought their eyes looked similar. At one point, he squirmed in his seat and whispered, “could you not stare at me, please?”

“Oh my goodness, I’m sorry,” she whispered back to him with a shake of her head. But every so often, she took a glimpse up at him; he never left until the bell rang and they all returned to class for the rest of the day.

Hannah often saw him walking the halls of the school with his dark hair covering part of his face and his little body wrapped up in heavy sweaters and baggy clothes. She always caught him in music class while she took to the choir section and he tucked himself behind the tiny drum kit in the corner. He was a solitary little boy, never talking to anyone.

It was the middle of November when Hannah finally caught him after school. Both her parents worked so she walked with the other latchkey kids; she peered up at her leader for a moment when she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over her shoulder to find him lingering behind.  
He hung back on the curb near a vast grassy area lined with tall spruce trees. Hannah slowed down to watch him cross the street. She returned to the group for a moment, but then doubled back.

Hannah followed him across the street to the park. She reached the sidewalk on the other side once the group had turned the corner.

He walked faster, but she trotted after him. Once she came closer to him, he peered over his shoulder before breaking into a run. Up ahead stood a tall chain link fence around a low bright blue wall surrounded by thick evergreen bushes. To the right stood more grass, a side street, and then, beyond another tree line loomed a sliver of Lake Ontario.

“Leave me alone—“ he pleaded once she caught up with him.

“But why?” I blurted out.

“Leave me alone, please!” He ran away towards the bushes near the hockey rink. He was a fast runner: his legs pumped so much harder than hers. But she lurked back a bit to watch him duck behind the biggest one near the door. Panting, she spotted his nappy hair from behind the pine needles. She rounded the bush closest to her to find he had taken a seat against the bare branches with his feet stretched towards the wall.

He bowed his head into his arms.

“Hey—are you okay?” she choked out.

“Don’t look at me,” he begged from his folded arms. She took a knee next to him.

“Hey—Hey, it’s okay,” she assured him as she knelt closer to him.

“No, it’s not,” he snapped back.

“What happened?” she asked; she set a hand on the base of the branch behind her.

“Nothing.”

“I think something happened,” she pointed out. He sniffled, and then he lifted his head to look at her with those big brown eyes. His brown eyes onto hers for a good long minute. He then swallowed.

“Do you promise not to tell?” he asked her.

“Pinky promise.” She stuck out her right pinky finger for him, and he hooked his around.

“I’m ugly,” he bluntly said.

“Who said that?”

“Everyone. When you’re half Injun, people will look at you funny and you make you hate yourself.”

“Half what?”

“Injun,” he repeated, sniffling again. “That’s a word my grandma taught me when I was little. She said that’s a word white people like to use to put Indians down.”

“Why are you using it then?” She shifted her weight against the branches.

“She said if we use it, it loses its venom.”

“Do you think I could use it?” she suggested.

“Are you Indian?”

“Yeah. My grandpa is Blackfoot.”

“My mom, and my grandparents are all Iroquois. I don’t know about your tribe but you know, I do—I do feel better talking about it, though. I don’t feel so all alone.” He hunched his shoulders to keep the warmth in his little body.

“I’m also Italian from my dad’s side,” he added, shivering.

“I’m German, Norwegian, African, and a little bit French,” she told him. “I’m a mess.”

She nestled even closer to him, so close she put her arm around him. The wind picked up from behind the bushes.

“I’m Hannah,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Joe. But everyone calls me Joey.”

He glanced around the nook in the bushes, the tops of which protected them from the outside world. It was quiet there.

“Let’s make this our safe spot,” he told her. “We can come here when we both feel alone.”

“It’s a quiet place here,” she added.

They often came back to that little spot, all throughout elementary school. Once he confessed to missing her after a good snow because they couldn’t meet up there, but they always did on warmer days. They often walked home together and hung out there for a while until they had to return home. They talked about their day, like something that happened at recess or during class. He always made her laugh with his little off-the-cuff quips and his spicy sense of humor; she often made him laugh when she learned sarcasm and her humor grew sharper.

They always returned to the quiet place as they grew older and Joey found interest in hockey and then music. Every single time they took the exact same seating with their backs to the grass. Hannah always put her arm around him whenever he felt too cold; sometimes he did the same with her, too. One day, Hannah ran to the quiet place to cry and Joey caught up with her to comfort her. She managed to cry in front of him.

At school, their classes were down the hall from each other, and thus seeing him was the best part of the day for her.

Meanwhile, she watched his dark hair grow longer, down past his shoulders; thicker to where his singular curls piled so as to resemble a bush; and darker to where it was solid black. They listened to each other's voices change: his squeaky little boy voice broke and deepened, and hers grew louder and yet sweeter. She was the first person he sang to when he found music: he would sing "Blackbird" to her as the shadows grew longer.

They even watched their hips grow fuller—it was more so the case with her, but his developed a gentle curve, all while he grew lankier: he gained all of his weight in the form of slender but strong muscles. The first time Hannah knew he was going to be a tall man was in the middle of sixth grade, and one of the last times she saw him, was when he stretched out his legs, and his jeans receded back up enough to reveal the tops of his black Chuck Taylors.

The last time they saw each other was the last day of the summer before seventh grade, and she had been accepted into a brand new art school over in Rochester, which meant she and her parents would have to move.

“It’s middle school only, though,” she assured him. “So I could come back by the time high school starts up.”

“But that’s three years without you, though,” he remarked. “Who am I going to hang out with until then? Who's gonna put up with how much of an asshole I am?”

Hannah could never answer that question, even as they strode over to the curb and stopped before crossing.

She put her arms around him to feel him one last time: even though he had grown slim and toned, he kept this nice soft feeling to him. He held her in his slender arms, right up against his deepening chest. Hannah never wanted to let go of him, not just from the fact she was saying goodbye to her best friend but from the fact she always wanted to stay with his softness and his gentleness.

And after she moved, he never saw her grow heavier. She grew fuller and rounder with every day that went by; indeed, by the time she started ninth grade, she was five foot seven and a hundred sixty pounds. Another fifteen on her and she would be considered fat. Her parents worked long days so she often spent her time alone.

The blessing, however, was art, her new friend Francine, and the tape recorder to record her thoughts. Since she was alone, she spoke her thoughts aloud into it.

All through high school, not one time did she hear a peep from Joey even with hope of hearing from him. By her eighteenth birthday in the middle of April she had worked two jobs, the latter of which she liked at first from the pay. But over time she hated it there: the hours were ridiculous so she couldn’t see her parents too often, or make art so much.

She began spiraling again.

There even came a point before her twentieth birthday she had even gone so far to writing a suicide note and a plan on how to kill herself. The plan even included finding a way back to Joey to tell him goodbye. She actually wrote down “drive to Oswego, scout out a drug dealer, and overdose on heroin right there at home.”

But it was the thought of him, that belief that she and him would reunite, that saved her from her own demise. She finally said enough with the job, but she had faith in her art.

It took her a full year before she made her first modest commission. Hannah worried about eviction and thus she poured her all into every single piece. She and her parents were given two days to leave their condo when one of her drawings popped up in a gallery in the heart of the city. She was invited to share more.

The commissions she made saved their condo and their home.

Over the next two years she had more and more art shows with galleries in Rochester and then that past autumn in 1983, she received a letter from that gallery that saved her, offering to sponsor her in her own show in New York City. She and her parents rode in first class from Rochester to Yonkers, right near the Hudson River. Eleven years in the making.

She was so eager about the whole thing that she made an auditory diary in the back room right before showtime. That little recording became her sole moment alone for hours on end: afterwards, she answered interview questions, made even more commissions, and even sold a few drawings. Hannah was on top of the world for once, caught up in a state of euphoria.

By eleven thirty at night, the owner announced five minutes before closing time, but she still had a couple of stragglers from the _New York Times_ in conversation. But once they bode good night, she breathed a sigh of both relief and elation.

Day one was done: time to grab up her things and head back to the hotel room.

She scooped up her purse and the tape recorder, and then headed on out to the rental car. Once she was in the driver’s seat, she rewound the tape to a clean strip.

It was full. She played the spot where she had left off before to make sure it wasn’t a mistake.

She gasped. At the end of the tape, she brought a hand to her mouth at the absolutely filthy message. So many strangers in there. It was possible.

She stuck the recorder in the panel of the door as she drove back to the hotel. At the same time a tiny part of her felt flattered that a guy went out of his way to leave that for her.

She entered the lobby of the hotel and she spotted the slender man at the ice machine on the side of the room. She recognized his flyaway jet black curls, now disheveled on top and grown halfway down his back, and most of all, that lovely curvature to his hips and thighs.

“Joey?” she called to him once she came within earshot. He turned to face her: he never lost that solemn expression and his eyes were as rich brown as ever, but his cheekbones filled out with a sweet little smile.

“Hey, I know you,” he greeted her. Her heart skipped several beats as she approached him with her arms wide open. As soft as ever.

“Oh my God—“ Hannah almost choked up as she held him and then peered right up into his face.

“Long time no see, right?”

“Right?” She let go of him to stick the recorder in her purse: out of sight, out of mind. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m in a band now. We’re recording a new album. We met with our producers today and our manager scrounged to get me and our guitarist both a room here because we’re both from outside the city. I was just getting ready to go to bed.”

“And then I showed up.”

“Right!” he declared as he raised his eyebrows. “But shit, Hannah, how’ve you been, though? I always thought you would look good with a little weight.” He eyed the curvature and thickness of her waist.

“Oh, you should’ve seen me after I moved out to Rochester,” she pointed out. “I was like... almost potbellied. But I’m an artist now. I just had my own show down the block.”

“I was wondering what was going on down there at that little gallery. I was right across the street and saw all these people were walking around, and I kept thinking ‘what’s going on?’ But I’m pretty beat, though.”

“Oh, I hear you. It’s been a long day for me. But... you wanna talk more over breakfast?”

“I’d love to. Here, I assume?”

“Of course. Hey, free breakfast is free breakfast.”

“True. Gimme another hug—“ He put his arms around her and she lay her head against his chest, and she closed her eyes. Even if it was for a minute, it felt sweet to be with Joey again. He let go of her and gave her one final stroke of her back before he returned down the corridor to his room with his bucket of ice. She watched him slip inside before she returned to her own room down the hall to my right.

Hannah set her purse down on the table to give that voice on the tape another listen. The second time around felt a little better. Maybe this guy was just trying to mess with her, or maybe he just wanted attention. But she needed to find him, especially after breakfast with Joey.

* * *

“So tell me more about your band.”

It was a blustery morning and neither of them felt to go out anywhere. Joey had put on a baggy black button up shirt and fitted black jeans, and a clean pair of black Chucks.

“I love this ghoulish look on you,” she remarked to him when he sat down across from her with a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin.

“Pretty rock n’ roll, isn’t it?” he replied with a playful little smile.

“Definitely.” 

"So anyway, my band—well, it’s not technically _my_ band, they just brought me in because I can sing. They’re called Anthrax after... some kind of respiratory disease.”

“That sounds attractive,” she said, nonplussed.

“Well, we’re heavy metal and our other guitarist Scott was the guy who came up with the name after reading about it in a biology textbook. He said the name just sounded sinister, like perfect for a metal band. But yeah, it’s me on vocals, Scott and a guy named Dan on guitars, and uncle and nephew Charlie and Frankie on drums and bass respectively.”

“Uncle and nephew?”

“Yeah, it threw me, too, because they’re like three years apart.” He took a sip from his cup before speaking again. “And like I said last night, Dan and I are kind of the odd ones, more so me.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“Scott’s from Queens, Frankie and Charlie are from right down the block in the Bronx. Dan’s from Rockland, almost in Jersey.”

“But they’re all from the city, though,” I pointed out. “How’d they find you?”

He chewed on his bottom lip. “I have my ways.”

“You have your ways?” That beckoned a chuckle from her.

He tucked a curl behind his ear. “After you left, I learned to take risks. And another part of it was from the pressure of growing up, too. Growing up a half-breed Injun boy in upstate New York is quite the experience.”

He took a bite from his muffin and another sip from his cup.

“Did you go back to the quiet place?” she asked him as he set down his cup.

“Once in a while. I had to stop in seventh grade because it got—” His face fell. “—depressing.”

“You were missing me,” she answered.

“Totally. You know I made new friends after a while and all, especially when I turned semi-pro with hockey. But I missed that—I wanna say ‘feminine principle’. Being there in the bushes away from the world and I missed something.” He showed Hannah a solemn little smile before he took another bite of muffin. And then she remembered.

“Oh! You’re not gonna believe this,” she started.

“What’s up?” he asked with his mouth full.

“Last night after the show, I checked my tape recorder—I’ve kept a spoken word diary since high school just because I, too, was alone with no one to talk to—“

“Mm-hmm...”

“—so anyway I checked the tape after the show, you know for a new entry—and at some point or another, some guy left this—very interesting message on there.”

“How so?”

“Filthy. Absolutely filthy.”

“Like...” He swallowed the bite. “…sexual?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Very. Kinky, too. But I have to confess I—” She chuckled. “—I found it kinda flattering.”

“Like some dude walked into the back room and he knew you had your hands full.”

“I guess so. You know I’m not such a mess after all.”

That coaxed a chuckle out of him. He took another bite of muffin and glanced down at his wristwatch.

“Oh shit, I gotta go! I think Danny already left, though—I haven’t seen him.”

“I’ll take you,” she offered him.

“Oh, thank you!” They rushed out to the cold and the rental car. He left his hair disheveled when she shut the door next to her.

“So where are we headed?” she asked him as she tugged the seat belt over her chest.

“Just a few blocks away over in the Bronx. I’ll show it to you—“ They headed on over to the recording studio in question. He showed her the way, past some bits of traffic all the while.

“I hope you can find that guy, though,” he declared at the last stoplight.

“I hope so, too,” she admitted. “This guy—Joey, I’m not even kidding—this guy said the honest to God filthiest things ever. I almost don’t even know how to react to it.”

“What did his voice sound like?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Could you describe it?”

“Throaty and husky. You know—sexy.”

The light turned green and they rolled towards the low brick building three doors down from the crosswalk. Hannah pulled up to the curb; he unbuckled his seat belt right before she pulled the parking brake. He cleared his throat again.

“Was it something like—“ He leaned into her face: he closed his eyes and parted his dark lips a bit.

“—Hannah... I want you,” he breathed out in that exact same voice as on the tape, “to run your tongue all along the side of my dick.” He let a soft airy moan out from the back of his throat. Hannah gaped at him right as his expression changed into a devilish grin.

“That... was you?” she sputtered.

“Shhh!” he hissed even though they were alone.

“That was _you_?” she demanded in a hushed voice.

“That was all me.”

“Joey—“ She was rendered speechless.

He sighed. “Okay. When I was across the street, and I saw all those people walking around, I also overheard someone say your name: 'oh, yeah, Hannah Ellsberg is here. She's right across the street!' So I walked over and I saw you talking to some people. I knew I couldn’t get in so I went around back and when the coast was clear, I ducked in and I saw the tape recorder in there. I figured it was yours because I didn’t think some girl would just leave her purse lying around like that. I really hope it didn’t bother you too much—I only did it to be kinda—” He rolled his eyes up and shrugged. “—you know, sassy and spicy. That being our thing and everything.”

Hannah closed her lips a bit when he shrugged again.

“Anyways, I gotta go. I’ll ask Danny for a ride back so don’t sweat it.” He ducked out of the car.

“Yeah, yeah—“

Once he closed the door, she lingered there for a moment before she back to the hotel. She gave the recording another listen with her mouth agape.

“Wow,” she breathed out when she reached the end. The two of them had known each other for years and the adolescence was the last time they saw each other. He was alone, and he missed her. But at the same time, this was an interesting, rather jarring side to him. Hannah had always known him as that little Indian boy with no one to talk to; she thought she had known him but this was something else.

The second day, she watched her parents speak to some people on the other side of the room and thought about them. What would they think about it?

It was the same shtick that night, and this time Hannah ducked into her room with some checks in her pocket.

She spotted him at the ice machine again and she ran over to him.

“What’s up?” he greeted her.

“Can I talk to you about something?” she asked him in a hushed voice.

“Yeah, of course. In my room or in yours?”

“Mine.”

“Okay—“ Hannah led him to her room, right next door to her parents' room. He shut the door behind him and set the ice bucket on the table next to the TV, and fixed the lapels of his shirt.

“This is about that message,” he guessed.

“Yeah.”

“Look...” he began, shifting his weight, “like I said, I only did it to mess with you. I didn’t mean to... creep you out or anything.”

“No, no... you didn’t,” she promised him. She nibbled on her lip. “I wanted to tell you... I didn’t realize you were so... sexual.”

He sighed. “Let’s just say I—” He showed her his tongue. “—I missed you, especially right around that time when—things happen.” He spoke with that same husky, breathy voice. He parted his lips and unfastened the top button on his shirt to show off more of his chest.

“You know, I haven't gone out with anyone yet,” he confessed. “I always thought you'd come back. The first girl to look at me and come close to me.”

Hannah examined his dark skin, especially when he opened the next button down. She thought back to the softness she felt with that final embrace. She lunged for him with her arms wide open.

“Oh—Oh, Joey—“ she breathed out before locking her lips with his. So soft. The only boy who could feel so soft and so like home.

He tugged her to the bed. He stripped off her blouse and unhooked her bra. She tossed the bra to the side and unfastened her jeans. She unbuttoned his shirt to kiss him. His skin felt smooth and warm underneath her lips. She undid his jeans and kissed him all the way down that stripe of warm, utterly gorgeous dark skin. She grew moist with every caress.

“Okay, this is hot,” his voice broke. She peeled back his jeans for his length. So big and full. She put her lips around it first before she ran her tongue along the side.

His eyes snapped shut. He surrendered to the feeling. She curled her tongue around the shaft and put her lips around it again. He let out a gentle but broken moan when she swallowed it down. She let go and crawled over him when he reached down into her panties. His fingers wriggled right in between her lips.

“Wet as the streets outside,” he groaned out as his fingers twitched. She stared right into his face when she rose higher and higher. It was like a runner’s high.

“Oh fuck, I’m coming—!” she sputtered into his face.

“That’s it!” he grunted, and he let go. She lay down on his chest and they both panted, but then he started laughing.

“That’s my girl,” he said in a broken voice. She lifted off of him so he could take off his shirt and his jeans all the way. She could taste him all on the inside of my mouth, but she crossed a new threshold with her best friend, such that she felt closer to him. Once he returned out of the bathroom, he invited her into the bed. Once the room was dark, she lay her head against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.

“That was wonderful,” she whispered to him.

“That was everything I could’ve ever asked from you, Hannah, babe.” His fingers stroked up the curvature of her back. “But let’s keep this a secret, though, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” she promised him. “This is our safe spot, baby boy. My beautiful boy.”

“It’s our safe spot,” he echoed with that little smile again through the darkness. "Our new quiet place to have fun and dream about each other..." And that last sentence, he had sung her to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

>  _”Seen you from afar,  
>  wondered who you are,  
> wondered what you're like.  
> Think you're just my type.”_  
> -“Dreaming of You”, Cigarettes After Sex


End file.
